


What Remains

by Merelle



Category: Death Stranding (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beached Things (Death Stranding), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Gore, Higgs Monaghan Being Higgs Monaghan, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Redemption, Sam being a good dad, Seriously like it's a really really slow burn, Slow Burn, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-28
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-02-19 11:56:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22443946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merelle/pseuds/Merelle
Summary: Higgs Monaghan is dead. That was indisputable. The world is in recovery from the Death Stranding, Sam Bridges is trying to raise his daughter, and humans are finally retaking Earth.But it will never be the same. BTs, timefall, DOOMs...they all still exist. Life and Death collided and they cannot be separated. As Fragile and Sam grapple with the aftermath of Higgs' death, their attempt to raise a child who may or may not be the next Higgs-level DOOMs wielder, and the UCA's constant nudges to get Sam back under their wing, a call from the other side might just solve all their problems. If only that call didn't come from the man they both hate the most......and if he hadn't somehow, inexplicably, befriended their surrogate daughter.
Relationships: Sam Porter Bridges & Fragile, Sam Porter Bridges/Higgs Monaghan
Comments: 26
Kudos: 166





	1. Who We Are

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah. Hopped aboard the disaster train of these two. Hope y'all like slow burns :)

Part of him wishes Fragile was to blame. It would be easier to deal with, this torment, if he had someone to blame, someone to be angry at. Someone’s name to scream at the black sky until his throat was hoarse and raw, but however much he wants it to be somebody else’s fault, the fact of the matter is that this - his fate, this beach, everything it represents - this is all because he himself had pulled the trigger. 

Higgs doesn’t need to think about it to remember the sharp, burning pain as the bullet shattered his skull, or the weightless bliss following it. Talk about a killer headache - even now it aches, a dull throbbing he can’t shake regardless of how many times he tries to wash himself clean in the cold grey water that laps at the sand beneath his feet. Blood turns the water red. Red - the only splash of colour in this bleak place. Higgs wishes it were completely black and white. Red is the colour of loss, now, it’s _red_ that brought him into this whole mess. Red that painted the beach and splattered across Fragile’s pretty face. Yes, Higgs thinks he’d be more inclined to tolerate his eternal damnation if the colour red simply stopped existing. 

What a sick joke this all is, honestly. Whoever pulls the strings beyond the thin veil that separates what humans know and what they don’t is a sick fuck, because not even Higgs could have dreamt up an afterlife worse than this one. This beach stretches on for miles - infinite yards of immaculate black sand dotted with corpses of sea creatures that never lived to begin with. This is Higgs’ beach, not theirs. While it would be a bittersweet sentiment, the idea that the corpses used to be alive and as such perhaps Higgs is not as alone as he thought, the fact of the matter is that they are simply part of the scenery. Nothing more than simulacra waiting to be brought to life; clay figures lying in wait until such a time they are needed. Touching them offers a belching slew of tacky ink-coloured tar, bursting forth from their bellies like an overripe boil until nothing remains but a pool of gag-inducing stink and flakes of dark residue that flutter to the ground in spirals much too gentle for their origin. Blacks and whites and greys form the ridges and hills of a land he can never reach, tall and jagged and somehow more inviting than the small expanse of sand Higgs can occupy. He learned shortly after waking up here there is nothing to explore. It doesn’t matter where he walks, or how long, he always ends up right back where he started. A scientific marvel such as this endless loop would probably be enough to get some of the science nuts back home to jizz in their shorts - after the fiftieth time Higgs walked the infinite loop he thinks sitting through a four hour long lecture given by a scientist who took public speaking lessons from the fucking Swedish Chef would be more exciting than passing the same decomposing crab thirty times a day. Wait, no, he can’t even say _day_ anymore, so scratch that last bit, because there is no such thing as day or night here, just “Slush Grey” and “Slush Grey But With More Fog”. When the fog rolls out Higgs tries his best to close his eyes and shut out the world, what with sleep apparently not being a thing anymore. If anyone was around to listen he’d still call it “sleeping”, but in truth it’s more a process of suffocating himself with his cape to block out the watery light and attempting to keep his eyes shut. 

Sometimes, when he sleeps, or whatever it is his body does now, Higgs dreams in vivid detail of the moment in which he took his own life. It wasn’t...entirely up to him. If it were he wouldn’t be here now, he’d be sitting pretty on a throne of Bridges’ broken remains. Maybe taking a long, slow look at that porter’s pretty face - Sam, oh, _Sam,_ the bastard who triumphed over him - before blowing it open with a loaded pistol. Let the blood run in rivers down into the ground. Let the colour red have a new meaning. A better meaning.

Too bad it’s Higgs who got his head blown to shit instead.

Thinking about it is somehow worse than actually experiencing it. It’s like he’s watching a recap of “10 Times Higgs Monaghan Absolutely Sucked At His Job”, given that whenever he thinks about it a lovely slideshow of equally disastrous memories play somewhere in the background. 

...Okay, maybe not _entirely_ equal, but comparable in numerous regards. Getting eaten by his own BT was a close second. (In his defence Amelie gave him next to no instruction on controlling the damn thing the first time he summoned it, which meant he didn’t know trying to tame it like a dog was a bad idea. Rest in peace, whoever lived in that tiny settlement and the twelve birds that had been in a nearby pond. Sorry for the voidout.) Blasting his own face open...don’t think he can fuck up worse than that.

His hand had touched Fragile’s when she aimed the gun at him; it’s a weird detail to remember, honestly, given everything that played out before and after that moment, but somehow it’s that tiny, inconsequential millisecond that stands out in an otherwise blurry picture. That wasn’t to say nothing else was worth remembering. Fragile seemed...mournful, almost, and it’s taken Higgs this long - however long it’s been, time isn’t exactly linear in purgatory - to realize what the saddened look in her eyes meant. They’d been friends, once, a long time ago. Fragile hadn’t been looking at the terrorist king when she aimed that gun. She’d been looking at Higgs Monaghan, friend and partner, the man she confided in, the man who made her laugh with terrible puns and bad innuendos, the man she trusted and loved above all else. It was a look of grief, one someone might adopt while observing an open casket at a funeral. Higgs didn’t like the implication of that thought at _all_ . _“Look how far we’ve come,”_ she’d said, in a tone that perhaps was intended to be scornful, but came out tired and somber. Higgs had touched the gun’s muzzle, let their fingers linger together for just a moment, and then pulled away from the last human touch he’d ever feel. _“See you next time ‘round,”_ Higgs had responded, in as steady a voice he could muster with the cool muzzle of a gun pressed to his temple. Fragile had turned cold at that; he saw it in her shoulders, the way she tensed like a cat about to strike. _“No,”_ she hissed, _“This is it, Higgs. I’d ask if you had last words, but I don’t want to hear them. Let’s just get this over with.”_

Except that Higgs _did_ have last words. It just took him a moment to find them. They felt like barbed wire in his throat, tearing his flesh and tongue as he managed to stammer them out through the black tears that had begun to streak his face. He couldn’t tell if they were due to genuine emotion or leftover tar. Either way they stung like a bitch. _“I’m sorry,”_ he said. _“I’m sorry, Fragile.”_

The safety clicked off. Fragile’s porcelain skin glimmered with wet, crystalline tears. _“Fuck you,”_ she’d spat, and Higgs pulled the trigger. 

Since then, each time Higgs closes his eyes he dreams that moment over and over. The _bang_ of the gun and the darkness that followed. How long had he floated, _drowned_ in that endless sea, before finally sand met his flailing limbs and he washed up here, on this cursed place, to torment himself until the end of time and after? How long has it been since then, stranded here, bored and alone, with nothing to do and nobody to talk to? He may not have been the most social person in life, but by god he could use a friend right about now. The BTs that he can still, for some reason, summon, do little to edge away his isolation. It disgusts him to even think it but those pathetic things fill him with a monstrous hunger that gnaws at his stomach and into his throat; burns his tongue and lips, induces tremors that wrack his whole body. It’s not a hunger for food. Higgs hasn’t _needed_ food since Amelie took him in. It became a novelty, really, something to pass the time. His taste didn’t just disappear, he still _liked_ to eat, he just...didn’t need to. It was the chiralium, the tar and BTs that kept him fueled… They were his lifeline. Literally. No, it’s not a hunger for food. It’s a hunger for power. He _aches_ to feel it again, have it coarse through his veins but there’s _nothing,_ only weak BTs and salty water. Higgs tried to drain one of them, dissolve that sweet black chiral energy into his bloodstream, but it brought only a wave of nausea so horrible he thought he might die again, and when that passed he was more hungry than ever. After all this he’s beginning to think that maybe staying on the Beach would have been the better option; at least there he wouldn’t be turning savage from lack of chiral matter. At least there he’d be able to hear his heart beat in the silence that accompanies every Beach known to man. Here it’s just...nothing. No breathing disrupts the quiet, his heart doesn’t pound in his ears when a signature bout of rage boils over, it’s just...quiet. Always so, so quiet. 

It’s enough to make anybody lose their mind.

“He's got the whole world in his hands,” Higgs warbles for the fiftieth time that rotation, “He's got the whole _fucking_ world in his hands, he's got the whole wide world in his hands…” _Thunk._ A round stone hits a jagged boulder and falls into the soggy sand below. “Got the whole world...in his hands...” The sand squelches under his boots. Each footprint he leaves is quickly washed away by the waves. Everything is always washed away - footprints, gouges left by a stick, the black vomit Higgs heaves up every time he shrieks into the endless sky and raises BTs from their oil slicks. He imagines he looks like a nightmare, hair turned white, eyes wild, black, oily goo oozing from his eyes and mouth. It’s been who knows how long since he’s actually seen his reflection. Ghosts don’t have one, a reflection, and he’s reminded of that every day. Reminded of it now, when he stoops down to retrieve his water smoothed rock and finds clear grey skies reflected back at him in the wet black sand. He’s simply _not there,_ erased from reality both here and in the land of the living. Not even good enough for a goddamn reflection. A ball of tight heat unfurls in his stomach, rising into his throat tasting of bile as his fingers curl into the wet sand. Anger - a familiar emotion nowadays. Usually the only one. 

“FUCK!” He yells into the cold empty air, that ugly thing called rage rearing its head once again. “FUCK!” His boot digs into the sand and he flings wet gobs of earth into the unforgiving ocean, crying black tears and howling curses to the wind. “IS THIS NOT ENOUGH? IS IT TOO HARD TO JUST LET ME _DIE?_ ” Higgs drops to his knees, sinking a little into the wet sand. Blood from his damaged skull drips steadily into the water, blooming like little flowers in the dirt. They’re washed away, too. “Please,” he whispers, the rage gone just as suddenly as it had come, “Please just let me go.” 

“Look how far we’ve come.” 

Fragile’s voice cuts through the silence. Higgs raises his tear-stained face and his atrophied heart starts itself just to go into cardiac arrest - she’s standing there, with the gun in her hand, watching him with those sad eyes. Not a memory or a hallucination - she’s really there, the sand depresses beneath her feet, there’s a _shadow_ where she stands…even whatever substitutes as the sun here glints off the gun cradled in her arms. Higgs feels his throat close up and his brain go through every possible emotion known to man. He’s surprised to find that of all of them, the one on top is, of all things, relief. He’s _relieved_ Fragile is here, even though she’s preparing to kill him, but if she’s here then it means Higgs isn’t totally alone. Sure, the words she just spoke are eerily similar to what she said right before Higgs became a super-gory version of blood pudding, but Fragile’s all about that word play. Right? Ignoring the fact that this is how it happened - this is an exact reenactment of the _second_ it happened, with Higgs on his knees and Fragile looking down at him. This could just be a fun, sort of effed up rescue attempt. Maybe she felt guilty, or they needed him to stop Amelie, or...okay, slew of thoughts pause for just a second. Fragile’s hands are shaking, and Higgs is transfixed, even as she pushes the muzzle against his forehead hard enough to bruise. The first time this happened, when it happened for real, Higgs was frozen as he is now, out of fear. Or something similar. Now he’s just confused, and resigned, because really, once you dream about your own death every time you close your eyes it gets a little bit old, even if your murderer is suddenly standing in front of you. “Fuck,” Higgs sighs. His head drops forward to rest on the gun. Is this stage two of his torture? Having to actually _live out_ his death? Figures. “Just pull the damn trigger.” 

Fragile does not. She stays exactly where she is, same sour expression, for a solid few seconds. Then she speaks - “No,” she snaps, “This is it, Higgs. I’d ask if you had last words, but I don’t want to hear them. Let’s just get this over with.”

God fucking-

Of course. 

Of-fucking- _course._

Fragile isn’t really here - why would she be? This really is just some screwed up, hyper realistic hallucination. 

Higgs throws his head back and groans as loud as he can muster. Fragile does not react. _Stupid,_ he thinks, _stupid! Why would she come back for you?_

She wouldn’t. That’s the hard truth, as much as it hurts to admit. The days of comfortable companionship are long past. They’ve been over since Amelie stepped her high-heeled foot into Higgs’ dreams. Fragile probably threw a party after he died. Her and Sam probably cheered and set off fireworks and the whole of Bridges probably gave them medals for it. Being resurrected and hailed as a hero would be more likely than his ex-partner coming to rescue him. 

Better get this over with. “I’m sorry,” he says, because hell, he’s got nothing better to do then play his part. “I’m so sorry, Fragile.” (He doesn’t want to admit it, but this time is just as sincere as the first, if not more. He’s begging this time. For his life, or even final, true death - anything that gets him out of this hellscape.) Higgs can’t tell if his hand moves by his own will or someone else’s, but it moves regardless, coming up to graze the rifle as Fragile’s finger twitches on the trigger. She draws a shuddering breath, hands fidgeting to get a solid grip, even as the gun trembles with her failing effort to keep it aimed at Higgs’ head. “It’s okay,” he reassures her, because he didn’t get to the first time. “It’s alright. Do it, _amour_.” Fragile gasps heavily. There are tears threatening to spill down her face. They fall in slow motion, splashing to the sand so fiercely Higgs half expects the water already on the ground to freeze at their impact; but it doesn’t, and Fragile’s raw emotion is lost in the waves. Her throat bobs as she swallows. Higgs falls into muscle memory from when this happened so long ago, on a different beach. His eyes flutter closed, and his hand drifts up the barrel of the rifle to breech, until he feels Fragile’s bare hand, rough with age, upon the trigger. He bats it away and grasps it himself just as Fragile realizes what he’s doing. “Fuck you,” she gasps, and it ends just as it always does. Except...

Except this time, Higgs watches himself pull the trigger. 

He sees the spray of gore burst forth in perfect tandem with the bullet, which buries itself at Fragile’s feet. Thick, fleshy gobs of red splatters across the smooth ground, broken up here and there by splinters of bone. Higgs’ bone. His skull, to be precise, that’s his skull and brains plastered all over the ground. Higgs watches as his eyes go glassy, staring sightlessly at Fragile. Her horrified gaze holds Higgs’ dead one as he topples backwards. A cartoonishly red arch of blood follows him down, down to the wet sand and the waves, dousing Higgs’ still face and trickling into the water, where it spirals into tiny eddies and dissipates into nothing. Higgs, from his front row seat of his own suicide, turns away just in time for an influx of nausea to sweep over him and gush from his mouth in a geyser of black oil. He hacks it all out into the sand, choking and spitting out the viscous liquid until his mouth is dry and all that is left is a faint taste of rot lingering on his tongue. 

What happens next is something he doesn’t remember. 

Fragile lets her duffel bag drop to the ground, and she follows suit, kneeling down in the wet sand next to Higgs’ prone body. Tears are flowing freely down her face now as she reaches out and brushes sticky locks of hair away from his bloodied face. She’s silent as she moves, gathering Higgs up in her lap so his head rests in the crook of her arm. Her free hand scoops handfuls of water over his face, rinsing it free of any left over gore. Her movements are gentle, almost motherly. Pinkish water trickles down to soak into the black sand. As she draws her hand away, her fingers touch his eyelids, closing his sightless eyes for a final time. When she’s done, and Higgs is clean save for the sizable hole through his temple, Fragile hugs his cooling body close to her chest and cries, hard enough her sobs wrack her lithe frame. “Oh, Higgs,” she whispers, “I’m sorry. We should never have let this happen to us.” 

The lilting melody of Fragile’s voice dwindles as, like a mirage, her body slowly fades away, taking Higgs with her until only a faint pink circle remains, and then that too is washed away by the tide. Higgs - the real Higgs, or what’s left of him - grasps desperately at the unravelling threads of whatever apparition just appeared before him. “No no no nononono,” he begs, lunging for the last bit of light just as it evaporates. 

He faceplants into the sand. 

Higgs doesn’t attempt to hold back the tears this time, lets them fall, fall onto the sand and mix with the foamy white waves. He rolls onto his back, staring up at the gloomy sky with eyes darkened by smudged kohl and tar. His pale skin is a stark contrast against the deep grey-black of the sand. For a moment he lays there, the image of Fragile rocking his cooling corpse against her chest freshly imprinted against his mind’s eye. 

Higgs tilts his head back and screams.

The anguished cry rips through his purgatory. Great cracks in the land split open as black tar bubbles and spits its way out, oozing and twisting its way into half-formed shapes, shapes with teeth and hands and nothing else, shrieking and wailing with voices so horrible the bravest man would turn tail and run. Higgs screams until the ground is painted black with oil and his eyes overflow with tar. His body leaves the ground in one swift motion, jerking upright like a puppet with a destructive puppeteer, and he spreads his arms wide as black rain pours down from the clouds gathering above his head. Feral BTs claw and skitter their way around below his feet, tar sloshing from their rabid movements. For a moment something within him surges, a wild call from the other side. The living side. It bites and claws at his insides, familiar in its aggression from all those times he repatriated. 

And just as Higgs feels power coursing through his veins once again, everything stops. 

He falls. 

Slowly, he crumples like his puppeteer has sliced his strings. 

He hits the ground and everything goes black. 

***

_Are you scared?_

“A little bit. Is that okay?”

_Of course it’s okay. You are doing so well, it is okay to be a little bit scared. Take a breath for me, yeah?_

“Okay. Will it hurt?”

_No. Just like falling asleep. And dreaming. Of something beautiful._

“Daddy says it isn’t beautiful. I...what if it’s scary?”

_Do you want to stop?_

“...No. No! I can do this. It isn’t rocket science.”

_You’re right, love, it isn’t. Ready?_

“Yeah. I’m ready. I’m gonna reach out.”

_Good luck._

***

_Two hundred. Two hundred one, two hundred two, two hundred three..._ one after another, pebbles _plunk_ into the distant waves, disturbing the water for a brief, fleeting second and then dissipating into nothing. _Two hundred four. Two hundred five._ A constant rhythm, shrouded by the ever blowing wind and its song that shrilly sings through the mountains. _Two hundred six. Two hundred seven._ A larger stone flies through the air this time, landing with a satisfying splash a couple yards away. The ripples last a little longer than the smaller rocks. It’s still lamentably dull. As he draws his hand back once more, preparing to hurl yet another stone into the water, a vice seems to latch around his hand and stops him from moving it further. Higgs feels a tug from within his chest; a burgeoning paranoia that somewhere, somehow, someone is watching him. It grows and spreads throughout his entire body, itching at his eyes, his hands. The rock slips from his grasp and _thuds_ to the sand below. For a single, brief second he swears the wind ceases its blowing and Higgs, for the first time since he arrived, takes a breath. The air tastes sour. Reeking of death, thick on his tongue, palpable, even. It makes Higgs want to throw up. He doesn’t. He can’t, because suddenly he’s no longer on the beach, he’s walking over the ridge that traps him there. Startled, he looks down at hands that are not his own. A body. That is not his own. 

No. That’s impossible. 

There’s someone else on his beach. 

He feels it, like a sixth sense, on the back of his neck. A tingle - he’s being watched. He can feel it, feel this intruder step foot onto _his_ beach, and the first thing he feels is not joy at his isolation coming to an end, nor is it fear at what it implicates, but outrage. Territorial outrage, as though he’s some mindless beast who claims land and rips out the throat of any creature who dares trespass. Higgs unsheathes his blade from his hip as his mind comes back to itself and slowly draws himself to full height. Inky black tar boils at his feet as he turns, every so often gathering enough strength and density to warp into a hand that tugs weakly at his pant leg before he kicks it clear again. “Here, kitty,” he croons. The knife in his grasp glints eagerly at the thought of fresh blood. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t just as eager. “Here, kitty kitty!” 

Movement. By the ridge. 

Higgs wills the tar form itself into a panther at his side. “Wills” might be too loose a term - he _commands_ it to, and rakes a gloved finger across its back when the cat takes shape. “Hello there,” he drawls, grin widening, “I can see you. Do come out, let me see your pretty face…”

The dead brush rustles. 

“Don’ hurt me,” a timid voice says. Higgs nearly trips over his BT as he stops suddenly, confusion flickering briefly across his face. The voice is anything but what he expected; he thought Amelie, maybe, or some other lost, tormented soul. He watches, dumbstruck, as a small, pale hand grasps the edge of a boulder and a young child appears atop the hill. A girl, by the looks of it. Probably ten or eleven, but Higgs doesn’t exactly have experience with children to have any qualification in his guess. She’s young, anyways. Young and short. Most of her body is buried in the stiff folds of a bright orange poncho; one that is much too big for her and looks like it’s been hemmed badly by someone who shouldn’t be trusted with scissors and then repaired by someone who knows what they’re doing. She looks like a walking warning sign. Higgs, in his dark stealth attire, flinches at the sight. At least her pants - soft white leggings, by his guesstimate - don’t match the godawful poncho on top. Her shoes are firm rubber things, similar to both Higgs’ own and those he’s seen worn by - ugh - Bridges employees. One employee, really, but the thought makes him mad regardless even if that employee has sort of garnered his respect. But just a little.

The child shuffles down the hill, little hands picking nervously at themselves. Her boots score great gashes in the earth. She’s trying to steady herself in her descent. It works, she doesn’t fall, though she stumbles when her feet reach flat ground. Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem perturbed by the massive panther circling Higgs’ legs and baring golden fangs the size of her arm. Gutsy kid. She seems to be focused more on the chiralium blade pointed at her - which, Higgs admits, is completely fair. He would be too, had he not been completely desensitized to threats of any kind for years beforehand. Although he’s compelled to sheathe it again, he doesn’t, instead opting to simply lower it. Reduces wariness while still keeping control over the situation. The girl peers up at him from under soft, short curls of strawberry blonde hair. She doesn’t seem to recognize him. Higgs isn’t sure if that should concern him or not. “Well, hi, sweetheart,” he purrs. “And who might _you_ be?”

“Hi,” the girl says. “I’m Lou.”


	2. What We've Become

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louise makes a jump. Fragile struggles to accept her grief. Higgs starts to question reality when a stranger appears on his Beach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's hear it for chapter 2, coming in with a whopping 15 PAGES on Google Docs, which beats out my previous record for "Longest Chapter" at 11 pages. 
> 
> I haven't slept in a week

“Do as your aunt says, I’ll be back in four days-”

“I know, dad.” 

“-If you’re feelin’ overworked, don’t push yourself, take a break-”

“I  _ know,  _ dad.”

“-And if you need me, you know how to reach me, but auntie Fragile also has my number so don’t try anything-”

“Dad, oh my gosh!”

Lou punches her dad in the shoulder with a small fist. Sam laughs, a full-bellied one, and behind him Fragile smiles too. “Love you, baby,” he says, planting a kiss atop Lou’s ginger curls. She wraps her skinny arms around his neck, burying her face in his loose hair. “Be careful,” she murmurs. Her voice is muffled by the hood of Sam’s jumpsuit. One of his large hands rests in between her shoulder blades. “Lotsa BTs where you’re headed. Don’ get caught.” 

Sam grins. “I know, darlin’. Okay, I’d better be off. Frage, you sure you can handle this little monster all by yourself? I can ask Deadman...” As he trails off, he rises to his feet with a grunt. Fragile circles behind Lou to wrap a comforting arm around her. “Of course, Sam. We’ll have fun. Now, go on and get moving before you change your mind and try to bring her with you.”

“Yeah, dad,” Lou pipes up, her signature cheeky smile blooming across her round face, “I wanna hang with auntie!” 

Sam gives an offended gasp and clutches his chest. “Jilted! By my own daughter, no less…”

“Gooooo!” Lou wines, shoving at her father’s legs with remarkably strong force for someone her size. Sam laughs again, gives her hair a ruffle, and waves goodbye. “Make sure she eats healthy,” Sam reminds Fragile on his way out, tossed over his shoulder offhandedly like saying it in passing will get it to fly over Lou’s head. “And don’t let her stay up too late!”

“Sam.”

“Okay, okay, I’m going. Jeez.”

Sam salutes the both of them on his way out Fragile’s front door. Outside it’s dark, and the brewing of storm clouds off in the distance foretells rain is on its way. In a past life, one lived during the heat of the Stranding, the sight would be cause for great concern. Now, it’s barely an afterthought. Fragile and Lou are too busy waving goodbye to Sam to even acknowledge the potential threat. Lou’s wide grin doesn’t change as she watches her father load his backpack. “Can we order a pizza?” She asks, waving eagerly as Sam looks back one last time. He blows a kiss, and then he’s gone down the road, off to wherever his deliveries take him. “Pepperoni or ham,” Fragile says, opening the screen on her cuffs.

***

Lou falls asleep on the couch with the television still on. She’s curled up under a fuzzy blanket, snoring gently. Strands of curly hair flutter each time she exhales. Fragile brushes them behind her ear and gently strokes her niece’s face. Lou doesn’t react. She’s dead to the world; apparently all it takes to tire the little ball of energy out is four slices of pizza and a marathon of some newly rediscovered kid’s show called  _ Pokémon.  _ Fragile does her best to keep her bundled in the purple blanket Deadman gifted to her for her birthday as she lifts the child into her arms. Lou automatically snuggles up against Fragile’s chest. Her small frame is warm against Fragile’s body, and even now after all this time it’s hard to remember that this girl, this smart, stubborn girl, used to be a Bridge Baby. It’s funny, when she thinks about it, that all those years ago when she first met Sam in that cave, that not only the odd man with a body stitched together with scars and handprints would become her closest friend, but also the pod he later kept strapped to his chest would be her dearest little Lou. Lou calls her an aunt but Fragile’s always saw herself as more of a mother; Sam sees her the same way, he’s said so, though they’ve both made it explicitly clear to one another that they are not interested in that sort of relationship. They’re a family, the three of them, a little mismatched and odd but a family nonetheless. 

The hallways are dark as Fragile carries Lou to her room. It stopped being “the guest bedroom” a long time ago; now it’s Lou’s room, just as the room across the hall is Sam’s room. There’s even a hand painted sign on the door.  _ Louise,  _ it reads, in Lou’s shaky six-year-old writing. The paper is wrinkled with age. It rustles as Fragile nudges open the door, clumsy in her attempts to not jostle Lou awake. As always, Lou stays fast asleep. The girl is impossible to wake. Fragile envies her for that. Sleep is a luxury, even now. Lou gives a soft sigh as Fragile places her into her unmade bed, pulling her blanket around her shoulders and drawing the down-stuffed lavender quilt up to her chin. Purple - Lou’s favourite colour. She says it’s because of the bellflowers that grow in the mountains; the ones Sam brings back for her when he travels through them. There’s a vase of them sitting on the bedside table in various states of decay. Their sweet scent reminds Fragile of days spent huddled next to Sam in a cave or under a timefall shelter, quietly discussing their next move. Fragile shakes the thought away before it can spiral. Right now she’s safe, here at home with her niece, and the events from all those years ago are unimportant. What’s done is done. What’s dead is dead. 

_ Who’s  _ dead is dead.

Higgs...

No.  _ Don’t go there, Fragile,  _ she warns herself.  _ Not again.  _

Fragile squeezes the plush rabbit toy Lou keeps next to her. Its fur is soft under her fingers. Smiling, Fragile tucks the bunny in next to Lou, who promptly tugs it into a death grip. Leaving the poor thing to Lou’s mercy, Fragile slips from the room and closes the door. A deep breath leaves her lungs as it shuts, as though Lou’s room was devoid of oxygen. It takes her a minute to realize she’d been holding her breath to keep from crying. Chiral allergies or distress? A common question these days, one she’s rarely able to answer. The anniversary of The End is coming up in just a few days, and like every year, Fragile is dealing with it the best she can. Sam will be back by then, but the days he’s gone will be difficult. He tells her it’s okay to grieve, even if she doesn’t believe it. Every tear she sheds seems like a criminal offense, treason, even. Shedding tears for a terrorist. How’s that for irony? She can almost hear Higgs’ patronizing tone in her head.  _ Aw, Fragile, are those tears for lil’ ol’ me? I didn’t think you had a heart in there. I’m, dare I say, flattered? _

Bastard. Somehow his ghost still haunts her after so long. 

The thing that bothers Fragile the most about it is  _ which  _ Higgs decides to torment her. She isn’t grieving the terrorist leader, fuck that guy, he’s the man who mutilated her and killed thousands. She’s grieving  _ Higgs,  _ the man who lived on pizza and ramen and once scared himself by sneezing too loud. The guy who gave Fragile the ankh tattoo on her hip. (And spilled ink on his pants in the process.) Fragile wants to miss him without feeling guilty about doing so; but only she remembers who Higgs was before Amelie got her claws in him. And that was so long ago now. Higgs, leader of the Demens, is all that remains. Fragile would rather die than shed tears over him. For a split second watching his brains splatter across the Beach was gratifying - her mutilation, finally avenged, the world finally safe from his grasp…then his eyes went blank and he was the shell of a man who Fragile once loved. The cold glint that had become such a signature in his icy eyes faded away, leaving behind not one life but two. A second death. As Fragile held him, washed away the blood and tar the best she could, for a moment, she could almost imagine it was his younger body she cradled in her arms. That when she closed his eyes for the last time he was simply falling asleep. That the black leaking from his eyes was kohl eyeliner, nothing more. 

Higgs was a paradox that would never be solved. He was a man who lived two lives in one lifetime and died twice, the man whom Fragile loved the most and hated even more, and a man who could be so great but so evil. Nothing about him had ever made sense and it now it never would. Fragile figures it’s probably what he’d want; Demens or not, Higgs loved being a mystery. All the questions left unanswered will be his burial shroud.

Fragile pinches the tears from the corner of her eyes and takes a deep breath. There are other things to worry about now, and Higgs isn’t one of them. She forces herself to push the vivid images of Higgs’ cooling body to the back of her mind, and walks down the hallway to her own bedroom. Louise will be up early tomorrow - and will probably wake Fragile up at the same time by standing three feet from her face like some little vulture, so the more sleep Fragile can get the better. Tomorrow brings hours of rigorous training and dealing with an over excitable girl. At least when Sam’s here they can play hot potato with Lou and catch a break for a couple minutes. Sometimes BTs are easier to deal with than Lou. And quieter. 

The bedroom door slides shut with a gentle  _ click.  _ A corner light flickers on, casting a warm orange glow over the immaculate design of Fragile’s sleeping quarters. It’s not much to look at. Not impersonal, but not as cluttered as Lou’s, or even Sam’s. She isn’t here enough to make it cosy. There’s a bed set low on the ground, grey sheets and white duvet clean and creaseless. A dresser, white like everything else. A collection of shells and sea glass sits in a bronze bowl next to a framed photo of a significantly younger Higgs throwing up a peace sign while his other arm is thrown carelessly over a longer-haired Fragile’s shoulders. It’s painfully ironic. A jar for cryptobiotes, emptied. Another photo, this time of Sam holding Lou as a toddler, pointing at something unseen to the camera. He’s smiling. It’s a good photo. Next to the bed, a glass pitcher half full of water and a matching glass beside it. Fragile trails her fingers over the square white table it sits upon as she sits down on her bed. She could open it, reveal the shiny gold mask that sits in a nest of fabric, waiting to be used…

Part of her is tempted. Part of her wants to see it again, even with the pain it will undeniably cause. In the end she forces herself to turn away, the lure of sleep rousing her to strip down to her undergarments and climb under the blankets. It takes much too long to finally drift off into a dreamless sleep. 

  
  


***

Lou dreamt of the Beach again. 

Her dad says it’s normal for someone like her - someone like  _ us _ was what he actually said -, but Lou still gets freaked out by it. Aunt Fragile describes her Beach a little like she’s tiptoeing through a minefield, except the mines are gruesome truths about the Death Stranding her and Lou’s dad think Lou doesn’t know about. They talk about the Stranding in a weird code the two of them strung together, spun of awkward pauses and hesitant phrasing, like Lou didn’t live through the whole thing just like they did. Or like she doesn’t have access to the chiral network. Death isn’t something she’s scared of, no matter what her parents might think. It isn’t even a painful truth - her dad can’t die, her aunt stares death in the face until it runs away, and Lou herself has belonged to death’s cold embrace. Several times. So it isn’t really, in all honesty, the Beach as a  _ concept _ that creeps Lou out, it’s the one she dreams about in  _ particular,  _ because it isn’t her Beach. 

Lou has been to her Beach. Twice. And it’s...well, not  _ nice,  _ given that it’s a literal purgatory, but it’s not horrible and infested with dead whales. Which is what the other Beach has. Her Beach has white sand and broken BB pods, beeping machines and wires winding up and down the Beach mimicking roots of a great tree and at the center of it all a faceless woman lies lifeless in a hospital bed. It’s an unpleasant place, somewhere Lou is reminded of her place in the world, but it’s nothing like what she sees in her dreams. The Beach in her dreams is dark, cold, and rotten. It’s a punishment. She’s never there for long, just a few seconds, enough for a brief glimpse of something she still doesn’t understand after nearly two years of visiting. The place is so sinister that Lou has been up for an hour already because of it, haunted by the memory. Whoever has that waiting for them is in for a nasty surprise when they eventually meet their fate. She wants to brush it off as just a dream, nothing more, a sort of subconscious effort to warn herself about the dangers of wanting to progress with her training or something, it’s just that...well, Lou knows what the difference between thought and reality is. Nightmares are one thing; nightmares scare the hell out of the dreamer but eventually fade away. Whatever this is? Not a dream. Not even a nightmare. She’ll wake up smelling salt water and the stench of BT chiral matter, which should not belong in her safe, warm bedroom with her purple blankets and walls the colour of sea foam. The dark images have even made it into Lou’s sketches, black charcoal substituting the sand and foamy waves. They’re horrible to draw, but keeping them locked up in her head somehow feels worse. Nothing about it feels normal, or what substitutes as normal nowadays. It’s like for a moment she’s left her cozy bed and opened her eyes in somebody else’s afterlife. The more it happens, the more Lou is inclined to believe that theory. It’s why she insisted her aunt teach her about travelling between Beaches, instead of how to properly banish a BT as was initially planned. Fragile had taken a lot of convincing - in the end it was her who gave in, as opposed to Sam, who was resistant against the whole thing. He only agreed because Fragile, after much wheedling from Lou, assured him with her as a teacher Lou would be just fine. She intentionally left the “probably” out. 

Morning sunlight peeks over the horizon, pale and watery just as it always is. There was rain again last night, if the glint of dew on delicate blades of green grass is anything to go by. Normal rain, not Timefall. Through a window she opens Lou can smell the sweet, fresh scent of petrichor wafting in. Somewhere in the distance the forcefield shimmers blue. It’s another peaceful morning, even with the looming grey cloud brought upon Lou by the Beach from her dormant mind. Lou absently taps her pencil against her sketchbook, watching as sunlight creeps in a steady line over the living room area of her home. It glints off the shiny white piano and draws the gold specks out of the black stone fireplace, gradually growing warmer and more intense the further along the hardwood floor it goes. Lou can feel the leather couch under her warm up the longer sunshine stays trained on it. Compared to the chaos of everything else in her life, this single moment of peace is a welcome shift of tone. Lou could stay here forever and not mind; listening to the birds start to sing outside and feeling a gentle caress of sunlight upon her freckled cheeks is more than enough. 

“I thought I would be woken by you, not the other way around.” Her aunt’s voice is soft but takes her by surprise nonetheless. Fragile is standing on the stairs, arms folded across her chest, still blinking away sleep’s hold on her. “I’m not asleep,” Lou yawns. “Just thinkin’. Excited for training today.”

Fragile laughs, clean and sweet as a silver bell. She ruffles Lou’s strawberry hair on her way into the kitchen. “First thing’s first,  _ ma vie,  _ breakfast. One cannot expect to have an easy day of training on an empty stomach.”

Lou instantly perks up. Like many kids her age, almost any problem can be instantly remedied with the promise of food. She kicks her blanket off, stretches, and stands up, burying her toes in the soft gray carpet that covers the clean hardwood. “Can I make eggs?”

“If you can beat me to the fridge,” Fragile says with a grin, to which her niece responds with an equally troublemaking smile. 

(The eggs taste like sweet, sweet victory.)

***

Fragile’s home is a sprawling estate to the north of Capital Knot city, enclosed by mountains just outside BT territory. Lou spent the first few years of her life outside her pod on the road with her dad, hiking from city to city every few days to trade supplies for shelter. From what she can remember it was a rough patch in their life. Eventually Fragile found them again, reamed Sam out for disappearing so suddenly, and then set the both of them up in what has since become their home. Sam continued life as an independent porter, if not for the money than for the treks themselves. Something to keep him busy. The Death Stranding continues in a routine way, but BTs are docile now, and society is slowly making a comeback. The last void out was nearly a year ago, out in the country somewhere, and nobody involved was hurt aside from the body. Still, the world is dangerous, and Lou isn’t allowed to leave the property without accompaniment. She’d be more upset by this if she actually had any desire to get away; there’s plenty of space here and although she one day wants to go with her dad as a porter, she’s got zero interest in going down to Capital Knot. The forcefield keeps them all safe, anyways, so why bother leaving?

It’s raining outside again. Not surprising. Lou lets it soak her hair and shoes as she bounds through the wet grass to the smaller second building near the edge of the property; it goes underground, similar to Bridges’ facilities, but it’s much smaller. They use it for recreation, and today, for Lou’s training. The cement is slick with rainwater when Lou arrives, like everything else. Small waterfalls pour from the rec center’s roof, splashing to the ground with a spray of white water. Lou kicks her foot through one a couple times when she passes them; her boots are going to be muddy and wet and Fragile might make her do this barefoot, but watching the water break its flow and then resume is worth it. It wouldn’t be the first time mud got tracked into the gym, anyways. 

Fragile’s already waiting when Lou walks through the sliding doors. A jar of cryptobiotes sits comfortably in her lap, a dozen of the little squirming things writhing in their confines, blissfully unaware of their fate. Fragile seems to be having an animated conversation with someone over the phone, so Lou takes her time unpacking her water bottle and lunch from her bag. Fragile snaps to get her attention and points to a second pair of clean lace up boots waiting beneath a weapons display. Lou smiles to herself - it’s almost as though she could read her aunt’s mind. Sitting on the cold floor, she pulls her muddy boots off and tosses them to the side. Her new boots fit snug around her ankles. They’re Bridges-made, Porter grade, similar to the ones Sam wears on his trips. Instead of the Bridges logo, however, a tiny grey rubber cryptobiote is emblazoned across the top. Lou adores them. 

Whatever conversation Fragile’s having ends with a sharp “Get on it, then,”and then the noise of a call being cut off. She’s changed from her silky pyjamas into her usual skin-tight black ensemble and her signature umbrella is propped against a nearby wall. Fragile pops the lid off her jar and offers it out to Lou. The cryptobiotes wiggle around, trying to get free, and Lou wrinkles her nose at the fat little things. She pinches one delicately, nearly gagging at the unpleasant warmth it radiates between her fingers, and draws it out. Fragile snatches one for herself and screws the lid shut again before any can escape. She pops hers in her mouth without regard; Lou, on the other hand, stares at hers with a queasy feeling churning her gut. This is her least favourite part of her sessions; important, yes, but wholly disgusting. She can feel the cryptobiote’s muscles seizing under its vaguely velvety skin. “Ew,” she deadpans, and squeezes her eyes shut as she tosses the bug into her mouth and chomps down on it. They taste exactly as one would expect - watery, slightly sour, unpleasant aftertaste a bit like dirt. Lou retches and wipes an arm across her lips, struggling to swallow the rest. “Ewewew,” she whines, pawing at her mouth. Fragile laughs and passes her a water bottle, which Lou snatches and chugs half of despite having her own only a couple feet away. “Gross.” Lou sticks her tongue out. 

“They’re not so bad, once you get used to it,” Fragile says airily, setting her phone down next to her own bag. “And if you want to jump as I can, you’ll  _ have _ to get used to it.”

Lou sniffs. “Maybe I’ll just die, then.”

“Wouldn’t suggest it,” Fragile shoots back. She sits down in the middle of the rec center’s floor and pats the ground in front of her. Lou joins her. The rec area is a decently sized space, empty of obstacles except for the exercise equipment stored at the back. Tall steel walls reach up to a glass skylight that lets in natural light and, on days when it isn’t raining, fresh air. There’s an ever-spinning hologram of Fragile Express’s logo floating way up above everything, occasionally blinking out to be replaced by a weather update or similar. Whatever weapons or memorabilia not displayed in the main house is kept here, behind glass display cases. Sam’s Q-Pid, an original prototype of Fragile’s umbrella. A gun belonging to Sam’s father Cliff, which still oozes tar from time to time. Lou’s BB pod used to be here too, until Lou requested it be kept in her bedroom. It remains there to this day, locked in another glass case next to a wall of drawings depicting her nightmare beach. Sometimes Lou squints at it and tries to remember what it was like to be trapped there, suspended in thick liquid. The older she gets the more messed up the whole thing gets. 

Right now, though, she’s not worrying about the pod. She’s getting settled in, carefully arranging her poncho around her crossed legs so she’s not sitting on the wet plastic. Fragile extends her hands, palms up, and Lou places her smaller ones within them. Fragile is cold and crackling with energy that zaps Lou as their skin touches. “Close your eyes,” she instructs. Her voice is calm and level, betraying no emotion. Lou obeys. “Breathe deep.”

Lou sucks a heavy breath into her lungs; lets it out slowly. She can feel the rising tide of energy flicker into being deep in her stomach, hooking into her nerves like a fishing lure. This part, the summoning of her power, has gotten so much easier over the past few sessions. It’s like turning a light switch on, now, as opposed to a couple months ago when it was more like trying to light a fire with a wet stick. Darkness floods her vision, even though the rec center is well lit. Fragile’s voice comes through as an echo. “Can you hear me?”

Lou nods. The movement barely registers. 

“Good. Now,” Fragile’s hands shift under Lou’s. “You remember the spark I told you about, right?”

Lou nods again. That was two sessions ago, but she remembers it well. 

“Ignite it.”

Lou does. She imagines somewhere in her belly, a tiny light sparking like a match and burning into a great fire, flaring out for a moment and then settling into a gentle flame. She tells Fragile she’s done it by giving her hands a soft squeeze. 

“What do you feel?”

Lou licks her lips. “I feel...warm,” she decides, “And sort of shaky. Like I’ve had a buncha sugar.” 

Fragile’s hands shift again. “Take another breath. Fan that spark. Fan it until it spreads up into your lungs, into your hands, and finally, into your head. It may feel a bit weird.”

Lou exhales slowly. She wills that little flame to grow, up into her lungs and hands and head, and Fragile’s right, it feels  _ really  _ weird, but...good weird? Pleasant. It’s pleasant. Static begins to charge in the air around the two. Lou’s hair stands on end, her curls bouncing out to ten times their usual volume. Fragile inclines her chin as yellowish-gold light flashes around Lou’s body, buzzing with electricity. It brings a bitter taste to her mouth; Higgs’ light was a nearly identical colour.  _ A coincidence,  _ she assures herself. “You’re ready to make your jump,” she says. Her own voice sounds a million miles away. “Just think about where you want to go. Imagine your beach. And remember: five minutes or less.”

Lou’s breath starts coming in short huffs. Her brow is furrowed to the point that wrinkles have started to crease her forehead. Fragile squeezes her hand in a comforting gesture. “Are you scared?”

Lou hesitates before answering. “A little bit. Is that okay?”

Fragile rubs her thumb in a circle against the back of Lou’s little hand. “Of course it’s okay. You’re doing so well. It is okay to be a little bit scared. Take a breath for me, yeah?”

Lou takes a deep, staccatoed breath. “Okay. Will it hurt?”

Even though she can’t see it, Fragile shakes her head. “No. Just like falling asleep. And dreaming.” A pause. “Of something beautiful.”

Doubt flutters across Lou’s face in her trance-like state. She’s growing colder. “Daddy says it isn’t beautiful. I…” she swallows. Chokes. Sucks in another deep breath. “...What if it’s scary?   
“Do you want to stop?”

Lou pauses. Then shakes her head. “...No. No! I can do this. It isn’t rocket science.”

Fragile chuckles softly. “You’re right, love, it isn’t. Ready?”

Lou nods. “Yeah. I’m ready. I’m gonna reach out.”

Fragile drops her hands. “Good luck.”

Lou smiles, opens her eyes, and in a flash of bright yellow light she’s gone, leaving chiralium sparks glowing in her wake.

***

Every time Lou has visited her beach, there’s been somebody singing. It’s a distorted, staticky voice, far from pleasant to listen to, and with the added ambience of countless beeping machines, babies crying, and the lapping of water against land, silence is a luxury. And yet, as she opens her eyes to find herself standing in the desolate grey wasteland that is the Beach from her dreams, silence becomes a snarling beast of a thing, boring wickedly sharp teeth into her bones, her brain, every nook and cranny of Lou’s very soul. Suddenly the horrible clash of noise from her own beach is welcoming. Here there’s nothing. Just Lou, her shallow breaths, and the far away waves battering jagged rocks. Sulphur and ash hangs thick in the air. Each step Lou takes brings a gag-worthy snap or clatter of bones. The ground is full of them - human and animal, mixed together in a hideous array of death and decay. A femur snaps in two under her boots and Lou nearly vomits; bile rises into her mouth and it’s only sheer will that forces it back down. For once she’s thankful for her forgetfulness; had she remembered to remove her poncho before training began, she’d have nothing to cover her mouth with and nothing to hide from the acidic ash. Trying her best to keep her eyes focused on the horizon and not the dozens of bones she’s crushing to dust, Lou pushes forwards to the sound of the waves. 

At some point a steady splashing breaks the monotonous silence. Lou’s scrambling up a rocky ridge when she hears it; a nearly rhythmic pattern of rocks hitting the water. She knows it’s rocks because of the hours spent sitting cross legged by the stream that runs through Fragile’s property tossing pebbles into the clear water. Realization strikes her at the exact moment the splashing stops. She isn’t alone here. Her hand freezes above a stone she was about to use as leverage to haul herself up the ride. When no other sound comes, she continues. Her hand just reaches the peak of the ridge when the slate under her feet gives away. Lou skids down with a strangled cry, only just managing to catch herself on the sharp edge of the peak. Tears jump into her eyes at the sensation of skin breaking across her palm. It  _ burns,  _ and she has to shove her other fist in her mouth and bite down to keep from screaming. With a muffled sob, she heaves herself back up and peers over the peak. Below her is a sprawling Beach, similar to the one her dad has described. The ash is even thicker down there, drifting up from decaying corpses of sea creatures long dead. Her focus on the carcasses is brief as movement jerks her eyes away from the sight.

A humanoid figure is watching her intently. 

She gasps and ducks down, hoping the brush provides a decent amount of protection. “Here, kitty,” a voice calls, low and tinged with an accent Lou has only ever heard in late-night programs on TV. “Here, kitty kitty!” 

Lou tries to cover her mouth to keep from being heard. The sudden movement causes her elbow to knock against a clump of dead weeds. Her heart jumps into her throat as a low laugh echoes from below, accompanied by a wet squelch of thick liquid. “Hello there,” the voice continues, sounding delighted. Lou’s eyesight threatens to blur completely as fat tears well in her eyes. “I can see you. Do come out, let me see your pretty face…”

Lou considers her options. There aren’t many. One, stay here and wait for whoever’s down there to find her, two, try to warp back when her hand’s hurting so bad it’s gone numb, while also losing any chance of getting some answers, or three, give up and show herself. 

Her body moves by itself. “Don’ hurt me,” she hears herself say as she rises to her feet. Down below the man watching her briefly startles, his grip on a shiny gold blade faltering for a second while Lou clambers over the rocks and awkwardly half-slides, half-shuffles down the shale covered slope. The man watches her almost as keenly as the great tar panther that prowls at his feet. A BT - nothing Lou can’t handle, even though it’s twice the size of her. They always listen when she asks them to stay away. What’s got her nervous is the glinting knife grasped in the man’s hand. If there’s one thing she’s learned growing up in this world, it’s that the most dangerous creature on the planet isn’t the BTs or feral wildlife; it’s humans. Humans are unpredictable and in this case, completely deranged. There’s a mad glint in the man’s eye as sharp and deadly as the curved chiralium knife inches away from Lou’s nose. He looks, in all ways of the word, like hell. Lou imagines he’s what a reanimated corpse would look like if it was reanimated before decomposition or rigor mortis set in - gaunt, hollow eyes, chapped lips, dressed in threadbare remains of military fatigues. His hair is limp and greasy, plastered to his head by thick, slimy tar and the unmistakable maroon hue of wet blood. Lou can’t even guess what colour his hair used to be; any pigment was lost long ago. He reminds Lou, more than anything, of a cornered animal. Lou had once found a wild cat trapped in the forcefield; it had gotten stuck in the current of the stream and was pushed up against the security wall, unable to escape. It had growled and spat, tried to shred Lou’s face with its claws, and nearly succeeded, too, until she was able to gather the poor thing in her arms and pull it from the water. The cat had gone from a bloodthirsty, furious animal to a shivering, mewling ball of wet fur the moment it was out of its trap. Lou supposes that’s why she isn’t about to pass out from fear right now - this man reminds her very much of Henry, the cat she’d pulled from the water who now repays her by knocking every single item on any shelf in the house onto the floor. 

“Well, hi, sweetheart,” the man says, and Lou has to wonder what’s going on through his head because his greeting seems forced somehow. (Fearful might be a more accurate description, though why a man who looks like he could kill someone with a single stare would be scared of a ten year old  _ Annie  _ impersonator is anybody’s guess.) “And who might  _ you  _ be?” 

Lou chews on her lip. Dad always said not to talk to strangers - but dad’s not here, and Lou wants answers she can’t get from him or aunt Fragile. “Hi,” she replies, lifting her chin to appear braver than she actually feels. “I’m Lou.” 

The stranger’s knife dips lower. “You’re a kid,” he says. The mocking edge disappears from his tone. “Yeah,” Lou replies tiredly, fully expecting the usual “why are you here, you’re so young, do your parents know where you are”, even when she’s literally in the afterlife talking to a man who’s probably got bigger issues on his plate than a child dressed like a traffic cone. “Are you dead?”

“Uh,” says the man, blinking. “...yes?”

“Cool,” says Lou, squatting down in front of the BT, which has ceased its snarling in order to sniff at Lou’s poncho. “I like your cat.” 

Higgs has never been so confused in his life. 

This girl, this  _ Lou,  _ she’s just waltzed into his afterlife, onto his previously completely isolated beach, and is now petting his BT panther without a flicker of concern. “How’re you...doing that?” He asks, watching as Lou pats the big tar cat on the nose. It purrs like it’s some common housecat and not a hundred pound death machine whose claws can cut through steel. Lou shrugs. “Dunno. Just can.” 

“Right,” Higgs says. He’s not entirely convinced Lou isn’t just an incredibly vivid hallucination. “How’d you get here?”

Lou stands up. Her boots, Higgs notices, make no imprint on the sand. They did in the shale on the ridge, but the sand stays stubbornly untouched. “I saw this place. In my dreams. Well, more like nightmares,” she explains, nonchalant, and then stretches out the hand she’s been keeping clutched to her chest. “I hurt myself on the rocks. Can you help me?”

Higgs is startled to find a fair amount of blood pooling in her palm; there’s a substantial stain on her poncho, too, previously hidden by her arm. How she’d managed to keep it on the back burner is beyond him; it’s a deep enough cut that even he would be flinching if forced to use it. Wordlessly, he extends his own hand, palm to the sky. Their hands meet. Hers is so small compared to his, and surprisingly warm, for what he’s concluded is definitely the weirdest hallucination he’s had yet. “Nasty cut,” he comments, barely registering that he’s said anything until he continues talking. “Careful. Things out there could devour a sweet little thing like you if they caught the scent of blood.” 

Lou furrows her brow. “Like what?”

Higgs smiles, sharklike. “Oh, anything, really.” His other hand closes over hers. He can feel her start to tremble. “I think,” she says carefully, “That I’ll just bandage it at home.” She tries to yank her hand out of Higgs’ grasp, but his grip becomes a vice around her wrist. “No!” He snaps. “Stay put!”

Lou twists desperately in his grasp. Her breaths turn wild and rapid, eyes widening like a scared deer. Higgs tightens his fingers and shuts his eyes, focusing on the warmth of Lou’s skin against his and the thrumming of her heartbeat beneath it. Cold rushes down his arm, numbing his fingers before expelling into Lou’s hand. He hears her hiss in surprise and this time when she pulls back, he doesn’t stop her. Higgs watches Lou as she opens her hand and flexes it, curiosity etched in the lines of her face. Higgs isn’t much of a healer, never has been, but he found early on that tar makes a decent suture, in a pinch. The webbing of black lines criss-crossed around Lou’s hand shimmer in the dull light. “That’s neat,” she confesses. “I didn’t know tar could do that.”

Higgs shrugs. “You learn what you must if you want to survive in our lovely little fucked-up world out there.”

Lou seems to try and fight off a grin and fails miserably. “Dad doesn’t let me say that word,” she half-whispers, like she’s saying something scandalous. Higgs narrows his eyes.  _ Hallucinations don’t have dads,  _ a small voice that sounds suspiciously like Sam Bridges says somewhere in the back of his mind. “Huh,” is all he says, because he’s too focused on getting this weird probably-a-ghost off his beach so he can get back to sulking in solitude. Lou stays stubbornly where she is. He’s beginning to think that’s a theme of hers. Lou suddenly tenses up before he can get another word in. “I should go,” she says, shuffling back. Higgs notes, with a hint of confusion, that this time her boots  _ do  _ leave footprints in the sand. “My aunt’s waiting. Thank you for, um, fixing my hand.”

“Right,” Higgs manages. Lou bounds off, throwing a wave over her shoulder. “You’re weird!” She calls just as she reaches the ridge. “What should I call you?”

Higgs is so taken off guard he stammers - actually, fully stammers, which he hasn’t done since he was twenty - and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “Peter,” he shouts back. “You can call me Peter.” 

Weird. Every other apparition has known his name already. Wouldn’t have anything to torture him with if they didn’t; separation between one’s self and everybody else tends to rely on names, or so Higgs believes.

Also, welcome back, Peter. Sorry there’s no pizza in purgatory. 

Lou throws up a peace sign from her perch on the ridge. “See you later, Peter!” Her voice echoes off the mountains and hills, and then she’s gone, simply blipping out of existence as Higgs himself used to. Higgs watches the chiralium embers settle into nothing before he flops onto the ground. The BT growls low in its throat and curls up next to him. Its tail flicks pellets of wet tar skittering across the sand. “Yeah, I know,” Higgs grumbles. “Been a weird fuckin’ day.” 

***

Lou wakes up on the gym floor. She’s vaguely aware of a fan blowing somewhere in the distance, creating a delightful ambient humming that sounds like a beautiful song after the horrid stillness of the Beach, albeit a little muffled. Her head hurts something awful and there’s the familiar coppery taste of chiralium on her tongue. The skylight high above her is a fuzzy blob floating in a sea of white. Her whole body feels limp and weightless, and yet still manages to ache all over. A foul-tasting syrupy substance starts to rise in her throat.  _ Oh, great,  _ Lou thinks, just before she shoots upright just in time to heave a substantial spray of tar onto the floor. A couple wet cryptobiotes float lazily up from the puddle. “Ugh,” Lou whines, slumping over. She falls against something soft. Warm arms envelop her, guiding her back down into a semi-comfortable supine position. Fragile’s face swims into her blurry peripheral vision. “-ise? Louise!” Her aunt’s voice breaks through the foggy wall that’s clouding Lou’s ears. A soft hand wipes at Lou’s lips. “Mmghf,” Lou mumbles. Her head weighs a ton. Another onslaught of bile rises and she twists to projectile it all over the floor again, then collapses back down with a moan. Fragile’s hand smooths down her hair. “Oh, sweetie,” she murmurs. “Let’s get you to bed.”

The next time Louise wakes up, she’s tucked in her own bed, with Lav the rabbit nestled in her side and a soft cotton bandage wrapped around her hand.Fragile’s jar of cryptobiotes sits on her nightstand. Lou tries to pretend it isn’t significantly emptier than it was previously. Even in her half-asleep state, she almost gags. 

Fragile is standing next to her bed, talking quietly to a faintly flickering Sam. Holo-call. “Dad,” Lou rasps. Sam’s head snaps around to look at his daughter. His hologram rushes to her side, clipping into her bed like a poorly rendered video game character when he kneels down. “Oh, baby girl, you’ve outdone yourself. You alright?”

Lou nods weakly. “Jus’ tired. Feel a little gross, too.” 

It’s Fragile who speaks this time, kneeling down next to Sam’s hologram. “I’m not sure whether to be impressed, or annoyed,” she sighs. 

“Impressed?” Lou says hopefully. Fragile pokes her on the nose.    
“You gave me quite a scare, young lady. You were gone for much too long. We agreed on five minutes.” 

Lou mumbles to herself, rolling her head back on her pillow. The stars she stuck to her ceiling when she was younger glow a bit in the dim light. “When’d we agree on that?” she groans. Her stomach gurgles. Hopefully from hunger. “Before I left,” Sam chimes in. “Baby girl, I told you to be careful.”

Lou scrunches up her nose. “I was! And I wasn’t gone that long, anyways.”

“Louise,” Fragile says slowly, her hand tightening around Lou’s, “You were gone for almost an hour.”

Lou wants to object, but her aunt’s probably right. Whoops. “Feh,” she grumbles. “I jumped, though. Be proud of me.”

Sam frowns. “Lou, you’ve gotta see things from our perspective. You’re a kid; a  _ little  _ kid. When I gave Fragile permission to teach you how to jump, we  _ promised  _ each other you’d be careful. Where’d you even go?”

Lou’s eyes briefly flick at the papers scattered across her desk and pinned to her walls, the ones upon which various versions of the nightmare Beach are scrawled. “Um, just...just my beach. I got...distracted. There’s lots to explore there.”

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. He’s doing the thing where he doesn’t know how to deal with Lou so he falls silent until he can think of something - it’s a frequent thing, actually, something that usually occurs when Lou has done something not even Lockne or Mama could predict. “Jesus, Lou, just...don’t do it again, alright?”

Lou gives him a feeble thumbs up with her uninjured hand.  _ One like awarded from Louise Unger-Bridges,  _ Sam’s HUD announces cheerfully, a couple hundred miles away. Sam rolls his eyes and shoots his daughter a warning look. She grins. “I’m heading back tomorrow,” he tells both her and Fragile. “It’s a little early but I got done early. I’ll be home sometime in the next day or two, okay?”

Fragile dips her head. “Keep me posted. I’ll keep her-” she points at Lou, who crosses her arms, “-Out of trouble.”

Sam laughs. “You read my mind. And Lou-”

“-No more jumps, I get it,” Lou grumbles. “Don’t worry. Get home safe.”

Sam kisses his fingers and touches Lou’s forehead. A spark of electricity bounces off at the contact. “I love you, pumpkin. See you soon.”

“Love you too,” Lou mumbles. Sam smiles and then he’s gone, his hologram shutting off with a soft click. Lou sighs and burrows further into her pillows. “‘M sorry, auntie. I should’ve been more careful.”

Fragile brushes a stray curl behind Lou’s ear. “It’s alright, my dear. It’s disorienting, the first few times. It’ll get easier. But you need your rest, so no more jumping for a little while, okay?”

Lou nods mutely. Fragile smiles and squeezes her hand. “Okay. Do you need anything? I’d like you to stay in bed for the rest of the day.”

Lou glances around her room. Her sketchbook is sitting on her dresser. “Could you grab me my sketchbook?” She points at it with a shaky finger. “And my pencils.” Fragile stands up and lifts the book and pencils from their spot. She examines the open book, eyebrows knitted together while she walks back to Lou’s waiting hands. “What is this, Lou?” she asks, examining the drawing of the nightmare Beach. Lou flushes pink, reaching out for her book. The last thing she needs is her aunt thinking she’s going crazy, too. “It’s, um, just something I dreamt about,” she stammers. “I think I saw it in a movie.” 

Fragile’s eyes narrow, and although she looks like she wants to push further, she doesn’t, just walks toward the door silently. Lou thanks any higher power that her aunt isn’t nosy. “Take it easy,” she says softly. A beep tells Lou she’s hit the door’s control pad and a second later the white panel slides shut, leaving Lou to stare at the  _ X  _ crossing the bulkhead. It’s quiet again. Lou leans over and turns her fan on; a little noise is better than none at all. As the dull hum of the small desk fan fills the room, Lou turns her attention to the sketchbook sitting in her lap. She silently curses herself for leaving it open where her aunt could find it - Fragile always respects her privacy, but even Lou can admit the image depicted on the cream-coloured paper isn’t something that should be in a ten year old’s head. Black water, grey skies, warped faces wailing silently in the whorls of illustrated sand. It looks like something straight out of a nightmare - which is exactly what it is. More than anything Lou wants to flip the page and let the charcoal drawing get lost in the book, start a new one, a more pleasant one, maybe of Henry, or the far off shadow of Capital Knot gleaming over the mountains. Yet as she toys the page between her fingers, she can’t quite bring herself to leave the drawing behind quite yet. Leaving drawings unfinished is a pet peeve of hers, because she knows if she leaves them they’ll never get done. Although this one is signed, given a title, and entirely ready to be forgotten about, it just doesn’t seem... _ right.  _ Trapping her tongue between her teeth, Lou draws out her charcoal pencil and presses the lead to the center of the page. Her hand moves with a mind of its own; sketching out first the mysterious stranger dressed in army fatigues, and then his odd panther BT coiled around his legs. When Lou sits back to admire her work, she can almost see the piercing, dead eyes of the man peering out through the mural of blood that painted his face. What, she wonders, could have happened to leave him so bloodied? A question for another day, perhaps. Today, Lou scrawls a new title at the bottom of the drawing. 

_ PETER’S BEACH,  _ it reads. 

Lou turns the page. A blank canvas stares up at her. Time to get to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't been genuinely excited for a writing project in so long guys we're gonna have so much fun
> 
> Also Higgs is fucking hard to write????? How does that bitch talk. I don't know. Motherfucker.


	3. What Lies Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An alarming dream disturbs Sam. Lou vents to an unlikely recipient; Higgs breaks character.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trash goblin has returned. Hello. Hi. I'm in quarantine because the world is going to shit, but hey, I have tons of time to write now. Yay?

_The BTs came out of nowhere._

_Their hands burn and pull, twisting and tearing at Sam’s jumpsuit with claws formed of shining gold chiralium. Black on blue, then black on red as blood burbles out from the tears in the fabric. His hands, pink and raw from being dragged along hard, rocky ground, scrabble helplessly as he’s flung backwards, landing on his side hard enough that all the air in his lungs escapes from his body. In the split second his focus is waived, that brief, spinning moment he takes to try and clear his head, an onslaught of tar erupts from the ground. Clawed, grimy hands grope and tug at his legs, his arms, even his face. Sam tries desperately to rip himself free of the monstrous things, kicking and thrashing to the best of his ability until finally, after an eternity of straining and struggling, his body gives out and he lands with a thud face-first into the slimy muck gurgling beneath him. The tar tastes of rot and earth. Sam weakly lifts his head as the grip on his wrists lessens just enough to permit movement. Black sludge runs steadily off his hair and nose, thin streams of viscous liquid dribbling into the writhing mass that keeps him trapped on hands and knees. Every movement is dogged by BTs wailing and scratching at him, not hard enough to break skin but enough to leave raised red marks on whatever bit of flesh they get a hold of. Hands fitting against the scars already marring his skin, reddining the marks, biting into freshly healed wounds with a stinging pain reminiscent of knives slicing down to bone. A guttural shout tears itself from Sam’s throat, wet with either tar or blood, tastes that both weigh heavy on his tongue. He reaches out a hand to drag himself forward, wincing as his shredded hands dig into the soft, muddy earth. There’s little breath in his lungs as he strains to crawl forward another inch. The BTs tighten their grip on his ankles, almost to the point where Sam fears they may pop the bones out of their sockets. His head drops to the ground, resting on his folded arms as his body struggles for air. Dark spots bloom across his vision. A familiar wave of unconsciousness begins to pull him under._

_A pair of boots wander into his fading line of sight. Dark grey. White laces. Wet and plastered with mud from a day of jumping into puddles._

_Sam looks up into the blank face of his daughter._

_Lou’s green eyes are empty. She stares at him, blinking slowly, as if in a daze, watching him fight to keep conscious. “Well, ain’t this a bitch,” an all-too-familiar voice drawls, as an arm snakes its way around Lou’s front. That cursed mask dangles from the fingers, grinning as wide as ever, like this is all some big joke it finds particularly hilarious. Its owner seems to share the sentiment; Higgs laughs, bitter and sharp, a sound that echoes through the barren landscape, doubling and rising in volume until it fills Sam’s head, and just when Sam tries to cover his ears to drown it out, the land goes silent again. He looks up to see Higgs slip that horrific mask over Lou’s face. It fits her perfectly. She shows no signs of even noticing it’s there; her face remains slack, even as Higgs runs a dripping, blackened hand through her red curls and inhales sharply. His tongue flicks out to wet his lips. “Look at her, Sammy,” he sighs. “So innocent. So...untouched, by this cruel, cold world. ‘Course, that’s all you, ain’t it? Keepin’ her safe, right? You and dear ol’ Fragile?”_

_“Please,” Sam croaks. “Please.”_

_Higgs laughs again. Quieter. His hand slithers away from the mask and down to grasp Lou’s jaw, running a thumb across the glinting surface of his own mask. “Hate t’ break it to ya, Sam, but she’s never gonna be safe. Not in this world, not in the next...there’s always gonna be somethin’ chasin’ after her. But that’s fun for you, right? You get to protect her. You get to_ save _her. You’re her hero,” he teases, twirling a finger in Lou’s fluttering bush of hair. “Though, gonna be honest…” A flash in his hand, the one on her jaw, reveals a wickedly sharp, long, curved chiralium blade. He trails it down her jaw and chin, using his other hand to gently tilt her head against his shoulder until the pale line of her throat is fully on display. “You’re kinda a shit one.”_

_A sudden, sharp jerk of his arm is all it takes to open Lou’s throat into a fountain of crimson red._

“LOU!”

Sam bolts up so fast his head spins. The sterile stink of a standard Bridges private room hits him but brings little comfort as he raises his shaking hands up to his face. It had seemed so real. This was the third time this week; same dream, somehow always worse. This time, the mask had kept Lou from screaming like she did the other times...Sam hates to think he’d rather hear her agonized wail of terror as Higgs slit her neck open than watch her die with that mask on. “Fragile,” he croaks. His voice sounds like sandpaper. “Call Fragile.” 

A beam of light opens in the center of the room. Fragile’s flickering form appears, seated on what Sam assumes is a couch somewhere in the house with a book obscuring half her face. “Sam?” She asks, surprise written across her features. “What’s going on?”

“Dreamed again,” is all Sam can manage. “Lou okay?” 

Fragile’s expression twists into one of pity. “Oh, Sam. I’m sorry.”

“Fragile,” Sam demands. He sounds a lot calmer than he’s feeling right about now. “Is Lou _okay_?”

“Yes,” Fragile answers quickly, “Yes, she’s fine, I just was in there to check on her. Fast asleep.”

“Fuck,” Sam breathes. He cards his hands through his greasy hair. Showering feels like too much of a chore right now. “Fuck. Okay. Thanks. Can you-” He breaks off, a wet sob threatening to bubble up in his throat, “-Can you stay with her? Tonight? In her room?” 

Fragile tucks a bookmark into her novel and gently places it to the side. “Of course, Sam. What did you dream about? The same thing?”

Sam swallows thickly. Higgs’ taunting smile hangs heavy in the back of his mind. “Yeah. Yeah, the same thing.” Fragile makes a noise of sympathy. “It’s rough this time of year,” she affirms, worrying the pendant around her neck with her thumb. “It always is.”

“I hate that he’s still in my head,” Sam groans, rubbing his temple, as if the motion will erase any thought of Higgs and his stupid mask. “I worry enough about Lou as is, but throw Higgs into the mix…”

“I know,” Fragile sighs. “God, Sam, I know. She scared the hell out of me today, too. Did you see her hand?”

Sam laughs to keep from crying again. “How’d she even _do_ that?”

“No idea,” Fragile says with a shrug of her shoulders. “She’s the most accident prone girl I have ever known, and there’s nothing either of us can do to prevent that. We can just try to prevent her from killing herself while doing something stupid.”

“She gets that from me,” Sam says, tiredly. “Alright. I’m gonna head out. Get some sleep, I’ll be there in the morning.” 

“Sam,” Fragile says, uneasily, “You should sleep too.”

Sam waves a hand. “I slept. For an hour or two. Go make sure Lou’s alright?”

Arguing is pointless. Sam is stubborn in general; when it comes to his daughter, he’s practically a brick wall. Fragile can confirm this on several counts. (See: Sick Sam = Sick Lou. Sick Sam stayed up for 24 hours straight so his daughter could sleep. Fragile had to physically knock him out with a crushed sleeping tablet in his drink.) “Alright,” she sighs, wiping a hand across her forehead. It’s getting late anyways. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Let yourself in.” 

She disappears before Sam can get a word in. 

***

Before Fragile “invited” - he says invited with a grain of salt, she more accosted him about it and then harassed him until he gave in - him and Lou to move into her new estate, Sam was constantly on the road. He still is, of course, because who would he be without his travels, but it’s easier now knowing that Lou is somewhere safe. When she was a toddler Sam had to carry her everywhere, or stick her in a wagon that he towed behind him. Needless to say, she wasn’t pleased. She sometimes mentions their journeys, either for nostalgia or to bring up her desire to join him again one day. Sam’s refusal to let her tag along is, predominantly, due to the constant, looming fear of losing her. Maybe the Death Stranding isn’t the same as it was a few years ago, but MULEs remain. BTs too, though they’re more spread out these days. The truth is, the world is still too dangerous for a kid like Louise. She’s a little too adventurous for someone growing up in a post-apocalyptic world; Sam can’t be sure she wouldn’t run off. There’s this deep-seated fire somewhere inside her that longs to be out in the open fields, chasing BTs and screaming her little head off from the top of a mountain. Losing her out on the road would be, unfortunately, very easy to do, and it’s not something Sam can risk.

It’s been years since Sam travelled through this stretch of land. It remains one of the more dangerous areas of New America, still infested with BTs and pools of boiling tar. It’s also the quickest way home. Miles upon miles of black tar stretch ahead of him, blurred by a faint haze of fog that hangs suspended over the ground. Mud squelches under Sam’s boots as he trods on. They’re wearing thin again; he’s only been walking for an hour or so and already the cold sensation of bog water and mud has seeped in. Awesome. Hopefully his spares didn’t get damaged by timefall. 

The fog that rolls in over the hills does a good job of dampening any noise, effectively sealing Sam off from the outside world. He could die here, and nobody would know. Not that it would matter, he’d just come back, but still, the thought is unsettling. _How many of these BTs_ , he wonders, _were like me, just unlucky_? Some unfortunate porter hoping to shave a few hours off their trip, only to become disoriented in the heavy fog and walk in circles until their supplies ran out and they faded away, lost to the tar forever. It’s a haunting thought, one that lingers in Sam’s head until he finally makes it out and his feet meet green grass again. 

There’s always been something strangely alluring in the abandoned hills. Timefall has long since returned civilization back to nature, save for the occasional rusted car or half-buried building. Since Higgs was defeated and Amelie’s plan for the final extinction quelled, humanity has slowly been poking their heads out of the holes they’ve been hiding in. Most days he’s out, Sam runs into at least one other Porter - maybe not today, but then again most other Porters aren’t keen to be out this early. Or late, depending how one looks at time. More and more timefall shelters, post boxes, ziplines, and other structures are popping up along the more common routes next to little signs with notes from whoever left them, like flowers and plants regrowing after a forest fire. Watching the landscape grow and change is a highlight of Sam’s trips. 

Fragile’s waiting on the porch by the time Sam passes through the barrier at midday. There’s a mug of something hot clutched in her bare hands, steaming in the cool air. Her hair is untamed, falling gently around her face without the usual restraint of hairspray. She looks relaxed as she sips her drink, and deep in Sam’s mind he’s finding it hard to compare her to the woman he met in the cave, whose walls were thirteen feet thick and made of concrete. “You made it,” she says with a pleasant smile. 

“Barely,” Sam grunts. “Lou okay?”

Fragile nods, taking another sip from her mug. Mint tea - Sam can smell it from here, on the steam rising from the ceramic cup. “She’s fine,” Fragile assures him when she lowers the glossy mug. Her fingers drum against the sides. “Actually,” she continues, frowning, “She’s...better than fine.”

Sam’s eyebrows draw together. “How do you mean?”

Fragile glances up at the sky. Her lips purse in thought. More steam rolls off her tea. “She isn’t worn out?” 

Sam looks at her blankly. _No shit,_ his face seems to say. “Look, I get- I get this is _Lou_ we’re talking about,” she ventures, “But she should be tired. _Really_ tired. A jump that long should have knocked her out for a couple _days._ Especially since it was her first try.”

“Like you were before the showdown,” Sam recalls. The idea of Lou like that, still and pale, twists his stomach into something awful. Fragile hesitates, then nods. “Yes, I suppose. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thrilled she’s alright, I just...I don’t understand how she can even be talking, let alone moving.” Helpless, Fragile shrugs. “Maybe she’s just stronger than we thought.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, because if he thinks too hard about it it’ll send him into cardiac arrest. It’s no secret Lou isn’t quite a normal kid - or whatever counts as normal nowadays. Still, Sam finds it hard to push away the image of Lou blankly staring at him, muzzled by the golden mask that taunted him for so long. “Why do you keep it?” He asks suddenly, harsher than intended, enough restrained anger in his voice for Fragile’s eyebrows to jump into her hairline and her lips to part in surprise. “Sam, what’re you…?” She pauses, watching as Sam clenches trembling hands in an attempt to steady himself. “Oh,” she says quietly. Her hand drops from her mug to cover Sam’s and she rubs gentle circles across the back of his palm. “The mask.”

“Yeah,” Sam bites out. “The mask.”

Fragile takes an uncomfortably long moment to respond. “I keep it,” she begins, careful and steady, like she’s treading over barely frozen water and is waiting for the ice to break and send her into the freezing depths, “Because it’s all I have left of him.”

Sam snatches his hand away. “He _tortured_ us, Frage. Killed me too many times to count! Look what he did to-“

“Me?” Fragile interrupts, rising to her full height. Even dressed in a butter yellow woollen sweater and lounge pants she radiates that inferno of power Sam has come to both fear and respect. “I know what he did to me, Sam. I know what he did and yes, I still hate him for it. But you know as well as I do that everything that happened, everything he _did,_ wasn’t entirely...his fault,” she finishes lamely, as Sam’s face twists into something sour. _It was Amelie’s_ hangs suspended in the air, unspoken. Sam could get mad, now, he could raise his voice, try to defend Amelie, spit a curse at Fragile and walk away to brood, but...that’s what the old Sam would have done. Amelie, over the last few years, has lost most of Sam’s respect. After Lou was...born? (Was she _born_ when Sam took her out of the pod? Or was she just removed? There’s a question Sam’s pondered for five years and he still hasn’t found of an answer.) Anyways. After Lou was freed and Sam was finally able to become a father, all he could think about was how his own birth dad had been torn away from him by Bridget. Holding Lou for the first time really put into perspective Cliff’s desperate attempts to find his son, even after he’d been murdered. The thought of Lou being stolen away made his blood boil, and in turn, Amelie and Bridget became a stain he could never wash away. Blood that would forever paint white sheets red. 

So Sam doesn’t get mad. 

Fragile’s right, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. Higgs, despite his, well, _everything,_ wasn’t entirely to blame for shit hitting the fan. Another image pops into Sam’s head, of a moment when Higgs caught him off guard and instead of attacking just leaned against a wall, took a drink from a flask, and asked if Sam was as tired of fighting as he was. _“Been fightin’ this war too long,”_ he’d said. _“It ain’t mine, it ain’t yours...don’t you want it to just end?”_ A few days later Higgs had apparently shot himself on Amelie's beach, so he got his wish, one way or the other. Still, Sam thinks about that encounter every so often. Their conversation, in particular. It had been one of few times he met Higgs without any blood being shed. Barbed words were thrown, sure, but no weapons. In fact, after a few shots of the ridiculously strong liquor Higgs carried in his flask, not even sharp words were shared. For a moment, Sam could sort of envision the man Fragile once knew.

Sam scrubs a hand over his face. His eyes are sore and probably red from the chiral dust he’d been walking through for the better part of a day. “No,” he agrees, tired, “It wasn’t completely his fault. I’m just creeped out by the idea of having that thing so close to Lou.”

Fragile smiles wanly. Her eyes are focused on something on the horizon, invisible to anybody but herself. “It’s just a mask, Sam. Higgs is gone. He’s not going to hurt anybody anymore.”

***

Higgs hurt someone. Namely himself, and this time it wasn’t on purpose. He’d thrown one of the whale corpses, or at least tried to, into the ocean, only to lose his grip when an unpleasant chill washed over him. The thing had tumbled from his grip and hurtled back to the ground, landing right on top of Higgs and exploding in a disgusting deluge of diluted tar. It’s dead silent for an uncomfortable minute, tar running in rivulets from his cowl and hair, joining into slightly larger streams before oozing into puddles at his feet. It stinks - hot tar, mould, and decay don’t smell pleasant by themselves, so mixing them all together is basically an invitation for Higgs’ sense of smell to kill itself. He raises an arm to wipe away the sludge sliding in chunks down his face. A putrid stench of rot hits him full force and he gags, flinging the slime as far away from himself as possible. It hits the sand and splatters into a line of chunky, wet sediment. 

Just when Higgs is certain he’s overcome this particular spot of horrible, fish-stink saturated, slime-filled bad luck, a faint _pop_ sounds off a few feet away and as Higgs rubs his eyes clean of tar, the small, thin form of his mystery visitor appears atop her favoured ridge. She waves. Higgs flicks a chunk of whale corpse onto the ground and scowls. He’s willing to bet her arrival is the source of that unfortunate shiver that caused this whole mess. The child - L-something? Luke? Lana? Lou? Lou! - picks her way down the slope. Her hand is still bandaged from her last visit; she keeps it high and dry from the sandy ground. Higgs wonders how long it’s been since she was last here. She doesn’t look as nervous, seeing as she’s the one approaching him and not the other way around like last time. “Hi,” she chirps, coming to a stop a good couple feet from where Higgs is standing. He becomes uncomfortably aware of the fact he’s in almost the exact same place he stood the first time Lou showed up - why he’s worried about that he isn’t sure, but the thought is annoyingly persistent. He takes a few steps to the right, just to be safe. “The hell’re you doing here,” he grunts. Lou wrinkles her nose, apparently only just noticing the dead whale stench. “You smell,” she declares, as if Higgs wasn’t painfully aware of that fact already. 

“Thanks,” he grumbles, wiping at his face with the back of his sleeve again. The plasticky material of his sleeve smears more goop across his face. He sighs. Figures. Lou rifles through a pocket and pulls out a package of - Kleenex? She offers the floral packet out to him, waggling it when Higgs doesn’t immediately accept it. Awkwardly, Higgs pinches the plastic pouch and tugs it from Lou’s grasp. The girl beams, and Higgs would find it a little endearing if she hadn’t also pulled the collar of her sweater up to cover her nose and mouth. He scowls as he tries to pull a tissue out without tearing it. “You just carry this shit around with you ‘case some asshole gets covered in slime?” 

Lou’s eyes scrunch up as she laughs under her turtleneck. “Oh, duh! I’m always on the lookout for old men drenched in BT goop!”

Higgs scowls even harder. “Sarcastic little fuck, ain’t you?” 

Lou shrugs. “Get it from my dad. Where’s your cat?” She circles around Higgs, examining him, and suddenly Higgs feels incredibly self-conscious of his disheveled appearance despite Lou being four feet tall and wearing a sweater two sizes too big. At least the traffic cone poncho is gone. “My cat?” He says, dumbly, still wiping at his face with a tissue. 

“Yeah,” Lou says, the _duh_ going unsaid, “The big panther. It was cool. Most BTs now are lame. Just people, usually. Although I think I saw a bird once.” She pauses, tone going thoughtful. “‘Course, it coulda just been a wet crow…” 

“Okay,” Higgs interrupts, tossing the now completely blackened kleenex to the ground and stamping it into the sand, “What the _hell_ are you doing here, kid?” 

Lou stares at him with a gaze that voices her unspoken words. _Are you dumb?_ She seems to be saying. “I got bored,” she tells him matter-of-factly, like it’s obvious. “My dad got all worried because I cut my hand last time, so I’ve been on bedrest for a week, which sucks, and now he’s acting like I’m a _baby,_ even though I’m not. I couldn’t even leave the house! Joke’s on them, though, because I’m gettin’ real good at chiral jumping. I don’t even feel sick from travelling here!”

“You talk a lot,” Higgs muses. 

Lou sticks her tongue out. 

“Anyways,” she carries on, flapping a hand dismissively and resuming her uniform patrol up and down the few feet of space around Higgs, “I thought I’d come visit you.” 

Higgs stares at her, then asks, dumbly, “Why?”

Lou looks at him like he’s just asked what one plus one is. “Alright,” Higgs mutters, “Nevermind, then.” Lou seems pleased with his response. Figures. “So,” she continues, halting her marching to spin and face Higgs, “Where is this?” 

“Um,” says Higgs again, still dumbfounded and utterly disoriented from this sudden disturbance in a terribly monotonous routine. Lou is much too bright and bouncy for anything he could dream up; of course, that doesn’t mean she’s _real,_ just that she’s from someplace else. Maybe Amelie was still out there, torturing him even now. Or, and it pains Higgs to think it, maybe she’s a memory buried so deep in his subconscious he doesn’t even recognize her. A victim of one of the bombings. A void out. There’s an air of familiarity around her, one Higgs can’t quite place, and with a sinking feeling in his chest he finds it more and more likely the latter option is the case. An image pops into his head, of Lou’s broken, bloodied body laying in the rubble of what Higgs assumes is Middle Knot, curly hair plastered to her caved-in skull by sticky, dark brown blood. It unsettles him more than it should. 

He’s shaken out of the spiral by Lou snapping her fingers in front of his nose. Or as close as she can get, given their drastic height difference. “Hey. Asked you a question.”

“Who the fuck _are_ you,” Higgs blurts out, before he can stop himself. “And cut the bullshit. Give me answers, girl. I don’t know you, and you shouldn’t- you _can’t_ \- be here. So who. The hell. Are you?”

Lou falls silent. Briefly, Higgs expects her to take off running. Or shift into Amelie or Fragile or even Sam, just to fuck with him more. Leave him in a crying, shaking heap. 

Lou does neither of those things. 

Instead, she shrugs. “I’m just a kid,” she says. Quiet. Steady. “Seriously.”

“What’d I do to you,” Higgs hisses, after she returns his fiery glare with an equally icy one. “Blow you up? Void you out? Stab you? Shoot you?” He only realizes his voice is rising in volume when Lou takes a sudden step back, eyes widening at the black tar beginning to boil at Higgs’ feet. “Come _on,_ kid! Who are you and what do you _want_?”

Slowly, Lou raises her hand. The bandaged one. A ruddy line marrs the clean white bandage where Higgs remembers stitching up the wound across her palm. “You helped me when I got hurt,” she says quietly, and she’s either the dumbest or the bravest child alive because even though the tar at Higgs’ feet is snarling and wailing a cacophony of gurgled cries and desperate moans she stands her ground, determination etched into the lines of her young face. “I don’t know what else you’re talking about, but you helped me, so that makes you pretty okay in my book.”

Higgs unclenches his hands from where they’ve stiffened into fists. “You ain’t dead,” he says, like it’s a realization. It sort of is, but also...sort of isn’t. There was always something, deep down, that told him Lou really was just a random child who managed to wander onto his beach. 

Lou snorts. “I will be if my dad gets home and I’m gone.”

Higgs fixes her with a warning stare. The tar burbles. Lou’s crooked smile fades. “No, I’m not dead. I’m alive and kicking, far as I can tell. Why, you usually get ghosts popping in n’ out ‘round here?”

“Somethin’ like that,” Higgs says quietly, thinking back to the most recent mirage and Fragile’s surprisingly non-crocodilian tears. Lou makes a sympathetic hissing noise. “My dad talks about seeing ghosts,” she tries. “Not to me, ‘course. Doesn’t think I can handle it.”

“Really,” Higgs says flatly. 

“Yeah,” Lou sighs. Her fingers pull at a loose thread poking out from the cuffs of her turtleneck. “But sometimes, when he thinks I’m sleeping, I’ll sneak out of my room to listen. He talks to my aunt about it, or to a funny man with a heart monitor over a video call. Says he’s being haunted. When I was younger I thought he was being serious, like, actually seeing ghosts or something, but then I heard him talkin’ about people he’s hurt or killed, cuz he fought in the Stranding, see, and I realized it wasn’t _ghost_ ghosts that were haunting him, but bad memories. Y’know, like ghosts of the past? Is that what your ghosts are like? Bad memories?”

 _Spot-frickin’-on, curls,_ Higgs thinks, but doesn’t say it aloud. He crosses his arms in what he hopes is a clear sign to _drop the friggin’ subject,_ because no way in hell is he going to dump all his emotional trauma on some random-ass child. 

Even if that child is the first and only living person he’s seen in however long he’s been trapped here. 

  
Even if she’s the first person in years who has looked at Higgs with something other than fear or disdain. 

Lou takes the hint. 

Her mouth snaps shut - thank _god,_ Higgs was beginning to think she might talk him into a second death - and momentarily has the decency to look at the very least, a little embarrassed. “Sorry,” she says guiltily, tugging at that loose thread again. “I talk when I’m nervous.” 

“No fuckin’ shit,” Higgs says, unable to stop himself. Lou’s lips tighten into a thin line as a pink blush rises to her freckled cheeks. “Keep speakin’ your mind like that, you’re gonna make some enemies.” 

Lou’s shoulders, having tensed with anticipation of a scolding, loosen and relax. She laughs, but not in the way Higgs would expect a girl her age to laugh. Not in the way he’s heard before. When she laughs, there’s a scornful edge to it, a bitterness reminiscent of his own tone of voice these days. In fact, the look in her eyes is almost identical to the one Higgs wears on the daily. It’s...disturbing, actually. “Enemies,” she snorts. “I’d have to _know_ people in order to make _enemies._ ” 

“Not a social butterfly, huh,” Higgs grunts. Lou rolls her eyes. She tucks a strand of hair behind an ear and resumes her pacing, though this time there’s a definite indignant air to it. Long-standing sore spot, apparently. “I _could_ be,” she snaps, “If my dad stopped _coddling_ me! This is the most rebellious thing I’ve done in my _life._ And I’m still worrying about him finding out!”

Higgs cracks a smile. 

He doesn’t even realize he’s actually, truly smiling until a few seconds later, when it fades from his face. “Word of advice, kid,” he says, ignoring the fact he’s getting the urge to laugh at Lou’s little outburst, “Never let anybody hold you back. Fuck, go out and make enemies - they’re better than friends, anywho. And for the record?” He gestures around them, at the mountains and the sand and the endless ocean that stretches beyond the horizon, “If this is the most rebellious thing you’ve ever done, congrats. It’s pretty fuckin’ rebellious, for a nine year old.”

“I’m ten,” Lou protests, but she’s smiling. 

Much to his disdain, Higgs finds he’s smiling too. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Realized both of the end notes on previous chapters mentioned how difficult Higgs is to write. Let's make that a theme. 
> 
> Fuck you, Higgs.


	4. Where We Hide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam reflects on a past conversation. Lou gets reckless, and pays the price. Higgs misses a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How has it been three months what

People, Sam had found, were most generous when good deeds have been done unto them. 

It had been a five-day hike from Mountain Knot City - plus another three days if one were to count the delay getting  _ to  _ the city due to timefall - just to get to the secluded, barely-there settlement that had placed an order for two vehicle repair kits, satellite equipment, and a standard shipment of medical supplies. The settlement itself only housed twenty people, all of whom, Sam discovered, were highly distrustful of him and watched him from their bunkers the whole time he unloaded the packages into the delivery slot. On the bright side, once they were one hundred percent certain he wasn’t a MULE, Homo Demen or another asshole who stole from the less fortunate, they allowed him to pass out in an empty bunker for the night as a thanks for their supplies. Being a porter meant making trades - and to be honest, this was a good one. It was the first time in the months-long journey of reconnecting America that he’d slept somewhere that wasn’t under a timefall shelter, in a cave, or in a Bridges private room. The place was small, older than any private rooms and therefore less technologically advanced, but after months of going to sleep dressed and waking up in his underclothes with no recollection of ever changing, the lack of cameras was a godsend. 

Lou hadn’t been happy to be sat on a table for the night - she spent at least an hour crying about it, just to make Sam feel bad - but she calmed down eventually. When she fell asleep, it was just Sam, alone in a stranger’s room, sitting on a bed well worn with time and watching rain run in rivulets down a sloped glass window. The silence was, for once, peaceful, until an all-too-familiar crackling noise split the air and Higgs Monaghan stumbled into existence with all the grace of a dying deer. Had he been there to kill Sam, it was likely Sam’s last words would have been “Oh, fuck off”. Luckily for both of them, Higgs was drinking heavily out of a golden flask and was in no shape to fight or kill anybody. He’d collapsed against the concrete wall, brandishing his flask in the air like a sword, dressed in an out-of-character ensemble consisting of a black, sleeveless turtleneck, cargo pants, and a black jacket that gave Sam an uncomfortable look at how skinny the man really was. “Been thinkin’,” he’d drawled, slouching against the wall, “Why’re we...why’re we doing this?”

Sam’s grip tightened around the chiral blade hidden in his cuffs. His gaze kept flitting to Lou, curled in her pod, asleep a few feet away. “Chill, Sammy,” Higgs scoffed, “I ain’t here fr’ your fuckin’ kid. ‘nd put th’ knife away. ‘S not like it’d do anything.” He flung his arms out, grinning at Sam with half-lidded eyes and a crooked, not-quite-genuine smile. “I’m fuckin’ immortal, sweetcakes! Didn’t ask to be,” he added, quieter, “But here we are. See, cuz that’s the thing, Sammy, that’s the  _ thing.  _ I didn’t ask for  _ any  _ of this, y’know.” Higgs chuckled, sardonic, before taking a deep, long swig of the sterile-smelling alcohol he’s been downing. Sam just watched, gradually inching closer to Lou. “No shit,” he said, “Don’t think any of us did.”

Higgs clicked his tongue and shot a wink and finger gun in Sam’s general direction. “See wha’ I mean? Been fightin’ this war way too long.” He laughed, the sound bitter and cold and surprisingly, if Sam heard it correctly, sad. “It ain’t mine, it ain’t yours,” he continued, with his head resting on the wall behind him, “Don’t you want it to just... _ end _ ?” At that, he’d shifted, so he was facing Sam, looking for all the world like a child hunkered down in a corner after being yelled at. It was the first time Higgs had actually seemed  _ human,  _ stripped of his mask and cowl. He was just a regular, fucked up human like everybody else in this godforsaken world. “Yeah,” Sam had admitted, because what the hell, right? Higgs probably wouldn’t remember this anyways, with how cloudy his eyes were getting. “Yeah. Sooner this is over the better.”

Higgs smiled down at his flask. He traced the engraving with his beat up hands, wrapped in bandages and covered in tiny scratches left in various stages of healing. “I used to be better, y’know,” he said softly, gazing down at his reflection with a dazed sort of sorrow in his blue eyes. “Used to want different things.”

Sam sat back down on the bed. Higgs paid him no mind. “Fragile told you ‘bout us, yeah? Two little fuckups who jus’ wanted to see the world put back together.” He laughed again, this time allowing it to dissolve into a half-sobbed hiccup. “Now all ‘m tryin’ to do is tear it apart. Well, fuck me, I guess. Universe never did like this broken bastard all that much. Two of us’ve got that in common, at least.” 

Higgs held out the flask. “To ending it,” he suggested. Sam hesitated. This was, after all,  _ Higgs.  _ The man who had been actively trying to murder him for the past six months, give or take. Sure,  _ he _ might be drinking it, but Sam had seen his self-destructive tendencies first hand. It could, for all intents and purposes, be very, very poisoned and this was just Higgs’ clever way of killing him off before the big finale. Sort of redundant, though, given Sam’s status as a repatriate. In the end that’s what convinced him to accept the flask. “To ending it,” he agreed, with a tip of the flask, “However that may be.”

“Hear, hear,” Higgs responded. “Whatever it takes.”

Four days later, Higgs was dead. 

Whatever it takes, indeed.

Fragile never talked about her relationship with Higgs before his betrayal. Sam doesn’t pry; he knows enough. Through the years they’ve lived together, raising Louise to the best of their combined ability, Higgs is the one thing that remains taboo in the household. He’s only mentioned during fights, which are rare, and even then his name is spoken in a hushed tone, like saying it aloud will somehow summon him back from the dead. All Sam knows is that they were close, and Higgs used to be a good man. Pretty much all of Sam’s encounters with the guy were a display of the complete opposite - except for the once, in that old bunker. For a brief moment, Sam could see the man he’d left behind. It...hurt, honestly, more than he expected. And that was without knowing him  _ before.  _ It hurt in the way seeing BTs hurt - not because they were people Sam once knew, but because, once upon a time, they had been  _ people.  _ What remained of the past, torn and warped into something unrecognizable. Higgs, Sam had come to realize, was himself a Beached Thing, in his own way. Broken and lost, lashing out because he believed it was the only thing he could do, barely a shadow of his former self. The thought isn’t enough to quench Sam’s hatred of Higgs, but it’s enough to dampen it just a little. Innocent before proven guilty and all that. 

Sam teaches Louise to always give people a second chance. Maybe Higgs is the reason why. 

***

What’s left when everything ends? Does anything matter? Do emotions matter? What is still considered important, in the long run? When the world ends, people grab what they can’t live without. Food, water, weapons. Personal items to remind them of a better place, a better time. A book, a necklace. Pictures of loved ones. Things that, for a moment, make the end of the world a little easier to deal with.

Lou can one hundred percent guarantee math homework would be the last thing she’d grab if another Stranding happened. 

Look. 

It’s not that Lou thinks education isn’t important. It’s just that in a world that has literally gone to shit, she believes that maybe learning to defend herself is a little more important than learning how to multiply. Her dad and aunt clearly don’t share the same sentiment, though, seeing as she’s seated at the kitchen table with a worksheet in front of her. The teeny-tiny numbers have begun to float off the page and flit around like tiny butterflies as Lou slowly zones out. She scratches her pencil across the paper again, doodling a senseless picture that somehow morphs into a stylized version of Henry’s sleepy kitty face he gets when waking up from a long nap. It’s the newest addition to a steadily growing assortment of mindless doodles that are creeping over the worksheet. Flowers, feathers, beetles with shiny wings. Anything that’s even remotely more interesting than multiplication. 

It’s been nearly two weeks since Lou last visited Peter. After reappearing in her bedroom following her last visit, when Peter actually smiled, who should be there but her overprotective father and equally protective aunt. Apparently they’d realized she was missing only a few seconds after she left. The earful she’d gotten from the pair of them - Lou doesn’t think she’ll ever forget it. To make a long story short, they’d flipped out, and Lou has essentially been on house arrest for two weeks. “ _ We just want to keep you safe,”  _ her dad had said, doing that thing where he cups Lou’s face with his hands like it’ll get her to calm down. It worked when she was six, and always wanted her dad, but now when he did that Lou almost punted him in the stomach. 

The math question she’s staring at seems to mock her. 

_ If Lucy buys seven books for 11.49 each,  _ it reads,  _ but the store has a “Buy Two Get One Half-Off” sale, how much money is Lucy spending?  _

Lou feels her pencil snap in half as her grip tightens. 

Figures. 

She opens her hand to dump the shattered pencil from her palm, and pauses when the thin, ragged scar from Peter’s Beach glints up at her, the healing skin shiny and pink. Lou thoughtfully runs her opposite thumb across the raised bump across her palm. It’s healed nicely, she supposes, and although her dad had fret about how young she was to have such a nasty scar, she’s secretly a little proud of it. Her dad and aunt both have the coolest scars; her dad is covered in ones that look like hands, from the BTs he encountered during the harsher days of the Stranding. Aunt Fragile, of course, is aged from the neck down, which is cool in its own way, but she’s also a patchwork of smaller scars from years kicking ass across New America. The most interesting scar Lou had up until her first visit to the Beach was the small X-shaped one on her lower belly where the umbilical cord that attached her to her BB tank had been cut out. Sure, falling against that rock and tearing her skin open hurt _ ,  _ a  _ lot _ , but now that it’s healed and doesn’t itch all that much anymore, it’s a neat little trophy. Her first battle scar. A symbol of triumph over her parents, who still seemed convinced she was a baby who needed protection. 

Looking down at it now, Lou wonders why she’s even bothering sitting here, actually trying to do homework. She’s broken through the veil that separates life and death! Why should she care how much money Lucy spent on books when Lou can travel to another world? 

A mischievous grin finds its way onto Lou’s face and she gingerly slips from her chair. Her slipper-clad feet pad quietly against the dining room’s tiled floor, edging her ever closer to the sliding patio doors that lead to the surrounding yard. She kicks off her fuzzy blue slippers and pulls on the sneakers left on the shoe rack by the back door. They automatically tighten around her feet as she pulls her raincoat from the asymmetrical coat rack propped next to the door. That takes a moment to put on; her wild bush of hair decides to get caught in the ties and a battle ensues as Lou tries to wrestle herself free from a blue vinyl prison. With an appropriate  _ pop,  _ Lou emerges, hair significantly messier, and slides the door open to hop out onto the cobblestone patio behind the house. Cool mountain air hits her, smelling of dew and wet dirt. Lou breathes it all in, relishing the feeling of a breeze ruffling her curls. On the horizon, a flock of birds takes flight, singing their merry song of freedom. Lou listens carefully for any indication that her guardians are outside; gravel crunching under boots, maybe, or quiet conversations on the front porch. She’s delighted to, for once, hear nothing. Nothing except the wind and the birds on the horizon. The silence sounds like freedom. 

Lou takes off toward the force field. Her feet carry her over the poured stone walkway, to the quaint oak wood bridge built over the stream that runs through the yard, upon which she pauses to admire the foreign fish swimming in the small pond just under a small waterfall.  _ Koi fish,  _ Aunt Fragile had called them. Imported from one of the overseas countries. Their orange and white scales shimmer as they glide freely through the clear, cold water. Lou scoops a handful of fish feed from the bronze bowl bolted to the railing and carefully sprinkles it into the pond. The fish thrash their tails and eagerly snatch up the crumbs, tumbling over one another in their fight to get to it first. “You’re welcome,” Lou tells them cheerfully, giving them a wave goodbye. The fish continue their feeding frenzy as Lou skips off, back on her path to the force field. 

Lou only recently started wearing a pair of cuffs. Her dad had been highly resistant to the very idea - for good reason, Bridges was constantly attempting to find both Sam and the BB he disappeared with - and it wasn’t until she’d gotten lost with no way to contact home that he gave in and allowed Deadman to send them a modified pair that suited Lou. Her cuffs were dark purple, and didn’t have any connections to Bridges or any larger corporations emerging from the darkness of the Stranding. She could contact anyone on her personal contact list, but they couldn’t contact her without first receiving a message from Lou herself. (This was, of course, not the case for Sam and Fragile.)

As Lou nears the edge of the lawn her cuffs let out a sharp  _ beep.  _ A blue light flashes near the holo projector, one she’s never seen before.  _ Low battery?  _ She wonders, tapping at the flashing light. It doesn’t go away. Lou shrugs, reasoning that since it didn’t start blasting off an alarm, it probably isn’t important. Or something to worry about right this minute, at least. Half a step further and it turns itself off. Huh. Maybe she’ll pop by Deadman’s lab to get it checked out; he’d probably appreciate the visit, since it’s been nearly a year since they’d actually seen each other in person. And it must get lonely sometimes, working alone in that lab. Yeah, if Lou can squeeze it in, she’ll go say hi. 

The force field looms over her, ominous only in its staggering height. Between the tall metal beams positioned a few metres apart, a thin web of blue light is spun, shimmering like sunlight through water. This section of the field, in the back where nobody ever enters from, is devoid of the screens and statistics that litter the front entrance. Here it’s just the light, and the endless stretch of bright green grass and rocky trails beyond it. Here, the light is sort of beautiful. Quivering with anticipation, Lou reaches out and pushes through the field. The first shock of electricity sends a shiver up Lou’s arm; her fingertips twitch from the odd sensation as it travels through the rest of her body. Another step, and she’s almost through. She’s drawing her other hand through, her right one, when the cuffs fashioned to her wrist touches the field. 

The effect is instantaneous. 

Lou is pulled back inside with an appalling amount of force. Electricity arks up her spine and she screams, less from pain and more from surprise. Her shriek is cut short as she collides with the wet grass. A dull ache blooms from her left shoulder, up her neck to her head and down her arm, which she cradles with a stifled sob. The force field flickers, colour shifting to red as a huge, flashing screen splashes text across the length of the field. 

_ UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL. ACCESS DENIED.  _

Clouds drift across the blue sky. Through Lou’s groggy brain she thinks she can hear far-away voices growing gradually nearer. Using her good arm, she manages to right herself into a sitting position. Her back gives a twinge of complaint at the movement. She ignores it in favour of glaring at the reddened force field. 

A hand grasps Lou’s shoulder. Spins her around. She’s looking into the concerned face of her father. His lips are moving but no words are coming out. Lou squints at him. “What?” she says, or at least, thinks she says. She can feel the word in her throat and on her tongue, but her ears are ringing something awful and any sound that makes it past the horrid buzz is vague and muddy-sounding. Sam’s hands are on either side of her face now, brushing her hair back, wiping bits of grass and mud from her cheeks, turning her head side to side to check for bruises, and he must still be talking because his mouth continues to move. By the frustrated look on his face Lou thinks he’s probably scolding her. 

“-how badly you could have been hurt? That was a stupid, stupid thing to do!”

Oh lovely. She was right. At least she can hear again. 

“Dad,” Lou snaps, batting away his hands with her own, “I’m fine. What just happened?”

Sam smooths down her mess of curls like it’ll somehow make her less furious with his response. She waits expectantly, eyebrow quirked, mud smeared across the left-hand side of her face in a lovely brown-gray arc. 

“My goodness,” Aunt Fragile says, announcing her arrival while sparing Sam from the wrath of his fuming daughter a moment longer. She rests a hand on his shoulder. “I am so sorry, Louise. Are you alright? We didn’t think you might actually run off. Does anything hurt? Here, let me-”

Lou slaps her hand away hard enough to leave a red welt on Fragile’s wrinkled skin. Fragile freezes, shocked, as her niece kicks away from them and huddles up by the humming force field. She glowers out at them under her long lashes. “What the hell,” she snaps, and Fragile and Sam are both too concerned-slash-speechless to reprimand her for cursing. “The security system is never on! You could’ve killed me!” 

“Lou,” Sam begins. He moves closer to his daughter, carefully and slowly, holding his hands out in surrender. “We just needed you to stay inside. I know we should have told you about the system, in fact, we were  _ going  _ to, but then Fragile got a call and you were absorbed in your homework, so we just...forgot. After you tried to disappear last week we got worried. Please, Lou. Come inside. Get warm. You can skip out on schoolwork for a bit, okay?”

But Lou hasn’t listened to anything past that first bit - that they  _ needed her to stay inside.  _

“You locked me in here?” Her voice is flat. Steady. A thinly veiled threat unnervingly barbed for a child. Her hands twitch in her lap. A sudden wave of anger crashes into her. Sam moves back, disconcerted, when her eyes darken a shade and her mouth tightens. 

“We had to, Louise,” Fragile says gently. “You would not listen to us; you were going to hurt yourself, running off like that.”

“I can handle myself,” Lou bites out. Her nails bite little crescent moons into the soft skin of her palms. 

“I don’t doubt that,” Fragile soothes, kneeling down so she’s at eye-level with her niece. “In fact, I know you can. But-”

“But  _ what? _ ” Lou shoots to her feet suddenly. Her eyes are beginning to redden as tears begin to well. “If you know I can handle myself, then why are you keeping me locked up?”

Sam and Fragile exchange worried looks. Lou fumes silently across from them, hands clenching and unclenching at her sides. “We just worry,” Sam says finally. “Please, Lou. You’ve gotta understand, you were so pale and sickly when you first jumped. What would we do if you disappeared out in the world somewhere and we couldn’t find you?”

“I can handle,” Lou seethes, “ _ Myself. _ ”

Now it’s Fragile’s turn to speak. “Louise,” she begins. “This is only temporary. A safety net, if you will. When I first learned how to jump, I could pass out for days at a time. A...friend of mine, found me collapsed in a truck two miles away from my starting place; I could have died out there had he not come searching. You must understand this was for your own safety.”

Lou bares her teeth. For a brief, horrible moment, Fragile doesn’t see Lou standing there, but Higgs, a petulant, stubborn individual with no real concept of self-preservation. “I’m not  _ you,  _ Fragile!” Lou all but yells, and Fragile flinches at the sudden cold edge to Lou’s tone. It’s the first and only time she’s been called  _ Fragile,  _ not  _ Auntie  _ or  _ Aunt Fragile.  _ Sam glances, wide-eyed, over at her, and Fragile can tell he’s thinking the same thing. 

“I’m  _ me!”  _ Lou is yelling now, tears flowing freely from her pretty eyes, hair slowly rising to wave about her face like she’s underwater and gravity is meaningless. “So just leave. Me.  _ ALONE! _ ” 

Time stops. 

Lou screams. In a flurry of tar, rocks, and torn up chunks of grass, her handcuffs are blown off and thrown in a mangled heap to the ground. She screams, and keeps screaming, until tar is running down her face as heavy as the tears, and as Sam and Fragile watch in stunned terror, she disappears in a clap of chiral thunder. 

***

“Ever think the BT’s can hear us?” Higgs shucks a slimy glob of tar off his boot and watches it splatter across the stones. “When we’re cursin’ n’ shoutin’ at them. Like they’re conscious or some shit.”

Fragile shoots him an odd look. “Really?” she says, shaking her head, “We get attacked and  _ that  _ is what’s going through your head?” 

Higgs shrugs. His hair is plastered to his head, wet and dark. Fragile reaches up to brush it out of his eyes. “I just wonder, is all. Maybe there’s some humanity left in ‘em, or somethin’. You never know.”

“Good point,” Fragile deadpans. “How about you try reasoning with one next time we take your “shortcut”? Then we’ll really know.” She breezes past Higgs, shouldering her stuffed pack to the best of her ability. Higgs opens his mouth to talk, but can’t find a witty enough response to retort with and snaps his mouth shut with a scowl. Okay,  _ maybe  _ it was his fault they ended up in BT territory, and  _ maybe  _ he totally froze up when the first one reared its head, but honestly, Fragile couldn’t have done better. Probably. Maybe. “Hey,” Higgs shouts, as he jogs to catch up with his partner, “This was fun! Like an adventure, or somethin’. Right?”

“There is mud,” Fragile says calmly, “In my shoes. My socks are wet. My cargo is also wet. This is  _ not  _ fun. Your fun is  _ not  _ fun.”

Higgs makes a dismissive noise. “Ah, come on, Frage. You’ve gotta live a little! This! This is what it’s like to be  _ alive! _ ” He flings his arms open, to the sky, the clouds, the few birds who dare venture into BT territory. “This is freedom! This, right here, is why I’m still kickin’. Smell that air, Frage! We’re free! Ain’t got nobody tellin’ us what to do out here. It’s just me, you, and the wide open air.”

“And the BTs,” Fragile reminds him. She’s smiling, though Higgs can’t see it. He’s dancing around, laughing, those beautiful blue eyes reflecting the sky and sparkling brighter than the sun. His face is dirty from the mud and tar, but those eyes shine just as bright. “Of course the BTs,” he laughs, “We wouldn’t be having fun without ‘em! God, Frage.” He catches up with Fragile and clumsily intertwines their fingers. “Who would ever wanna give this shit up?”

“Who’re you talking to?”

Higgs snaps his eyes open and Fragile disappears. He’s on the beach again. The sun is gone, replaced by grey clouds once more. It’s freezing. And wet. Higgs scrubs a hand over his face and scowls when it comes away shiny with tears he didn’t know had been there.  _ Chiral allergies,  _ he tells himself, which is bullshit. 

The little red-haired girl, Lou, is standing a few feet away, the remaining sparks of chiral dust popping around her feet. She looks, for lack of a better word, like shit, hair let down from its usual style, dressed in what looks like pyjamas underneath a baggy, navy blue raincoat. Her eyes are red and watery. There’s some part of Higgs that, for a moment, is concerned, because children crying are rarely a good sign and those are  _ definitely  _ not chiral tears running down Lou’s freckled cheeks. For a moment, they both just stare at each other, until the contact is broken with Lou wiping her arm across her face with a loud sniff. “Ah,” Higgs sighs, “This gonna become a frequent occurrence?”

Lou doesn’t respond, at first. She glances around, gnawing nervously at her bottom lip, unsure of herself and her surroundings. Her hands are restless in her lap. She’s not scared, or at least doesn’t look it, but her behaviour seems out of place even though Higgs has only known her for a short amount of time. (Well, not  _ known  _ her, per say, but was  _ aware  _ of her.) “Hey,” she hiccups. Her hand rubs away the tears still shining in her eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to...I thought I was headed someplace else. This was a mistake. Sorry. Again.”

Higgs watches Lou awkwardly shuffle her feet. He’s still seated on the sand, water lapping at his worn-down boots, and right now he’s just been made painfully aware that his own eyes are still watering. Damn mirages. “Fucked up the jump, huh?” He grunts. Turns back to the horizon line, and the thick wall of fog rolling in over it. Great. Another blind night, lost in the mist. “Must’ve been real off target, if you’re cryin’ like a baby over somethin’ so damn easy to fix.” His words, perhaps a smidge colder than intended, fall on empty ears as Lou sniffles again and wanders over to plop herself down next to him, uninvited. Higgs instinctively shuffles a foot to the right. When Lou still doesn’t say anything, Higgs finally looks over at her. She’s sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, head resting atop folded arms, staring glumly out at the approaching fog. “O _ kay _ ,” Higgs says, and turns back. Maybe if he ignores her, she’ll just go away. They both sit in silence, Higgs gradually nodding off, Lou staring morosely at something far off in the distance. Twenty minutes later, she’s the first to speak. “Are you alone here?” she asks. Her focus doesn’t shift from its fixed point on the horizon, now lost to the fog.

Higgs glances at her from the corner of his eye. Her tears have dried up, leaving only the redness of recent distress in her eyes. Her voice is dull, monotonous, devoid of emotion. Higgs feels that one in his gut. “Obviously,” he says. He can’t really help the laugh that gets forced out with it; sour and sharp, his own bitterness at his isolation accidentally slipping through just enough for Lou to catch wind of it. “I ain’t seen nobody ‘cept you since I arrived in this shithole.” He leaves out the bits about seeing his own death or reliving memories. Kid’s clearly got enough on her plate. And, though he would never actually admit to it, given that she’s the only real person Higgs has talked to in years, he doesn’t really want to scare her away. Not yet, at least. Lou glances over at him with a shockingly judgemental eyebrow quirk. “So then who were you just talkin’ to? Cuz it didn’t sound like you were talkin’ to yourself. Was it one of your ghosts? Did you see one?” 

Right. Kid’s smart. With a good memory, too. God knows Higgs forgets half their conversations, given the amount of time that passes between each one. Lou’s hand seems to be healed, which means it’s been at least a couple weeks since she last showed up. Feels like more than that, at least on Higgs’ end. Time is a harsh mistress and all that. “Yeah,” he admits. “I did.” 

Lou’s eyes widen with interest. The distress wrought into the soft lines of her young face evaporates as curiosity floods in, that now-familiar inquisitive glow reignited. Briefly, Higgs envies her, and her supposed ability to forget whatever was previously nagging at her enough to spark up an onslaught of tears. “Who was it?” She demands, leaning forward and getting way too close for comfort. Higgs makes a half-assed attempt to scoot away, but Lou follows, effectively cornering him despite being on a wide open stretch of land. “Well, that just ain’t none of your business, now, is it,” he replies coolly. “Shouldn’t you run along? Get back to your daddy?” 

Higgs (almost) regrets the words as soon as they come out of his mouth. A flash of hurt flickers across Lou’s fair features, followed by a tensing of her shoulders and tightening of her jaw. “I am  _ not, _ ” she spits, “Going back to my dad right now.”

Ah. Now there’s something Higgs can understand. Dads - gotta love ‘em. “Got some issues with dear ol’ pops, huh?” Higgs laughs, the sound cold and empty just like everything else in this damned place.

Lou scowls. 

“He’s being an overprotective jerk again. I got a bit sick after jumping, he flipped out, and then him and my aunt banned me from jumping and put me on house arrest _. _ ”   
“And yet,” Higgs deadpans, “Here you are,” 

“Here I am,” Lou concurs with a shit-eating grin that disappears as quickly as it had come. “Doesn’t change the fact that my dad still sees me as a defenseless little baby.”

“Maybe he’s just worried,” Higgs grunts, disinterested. That’s a thing parents do, apparently. Worry about their kids. This isn’t a field Higgs has expertise in; if Lou had been crying about tar monsters? Well, that’d be a different story. Whatever this is? If Higgs had the ability to jump away from this conversation, he’d already be long gone. 

Apparently, Lou’s heard the  _ he’s worried  _ excuse one time too many, because as soon as Higgs says it she’s on her feet, steam coming out her ears. “Don’t you even start!” She snaps, hands balling into fists at her sides like it’ll make her more intimidating. “Don’t you dare! You know how many times I’ve heard that?” Lou throws her arms out. “Too many! If he’s so worried,  _ maybe  _ he should let me learn so I don’t hurt myself again! But  _ noooo!  _ No, he’s gotta butt in whenever I try and teach myself something. I try and get better and he just gets mad!” 

Higgs makes a bored  _ hm  _ noise. Lou starts pacing, gesticulating wildly with her hands as she launches into a rant, most of which Higgs tunes out. Finally, apparently getting all her rage out of her system, Lou’s legs buckle and she falls to her knees in the sand. “They think I’m too young to understand all this,” she whispers through new tears. Higgs wonders if he could scooch away without her noticing. “But I lived through it, same as they did. Why do they haveta be so protective?” Lou’s hands curl into fists, raking deep lines into the wet sand. A tear falls from her cheek. “So what if I’m a kid? I just want them to talk to me!” 

The smallest bit of alarm rises somewhere deep down in Higgs’ subconscious; it’s enough to prompt him to stand, and move away, an action that saves him a whole lot of hurt. “Why don’t they just  _ TALK TO ME? _ ” Lou’s sobbing crescendos into an ear-splitting wail. Waves and sand around her explode in a tornado of water and sediment, shooting out sideways fast enough that small, sharp rocks pellet Higgs’ face, peppering his fair skin with tiny, painful cuts. He flings an arm up in a vain attempt to shield himself from any more projectiles, eyes stinging from the sand and salty water stirred up in the pint-sized hurricane.

Curled within the crater that remains, Lou lets out another wailing cry. The ground rumbles as a second wave rears its head - a tsunami of tar, roaring into existence while the small girl cries into the collar of her coat. Higgs finds himself unable to move as the wave bears down upon him. Be it fear, or confusion, or just plain shock, his feet stay stubbornly rooted to the spot as this massive, ink-black wall descends over him. Just before it hits, when Higgs feels the spray coming off it as it moves, he throws his hands up and  _ pushes.  _ Flashes of pain shoot up his arms as unused muscles are forced to move again, but he fights through it, pushes away the tar and flings his hands out to either side, sending the wave sprawling into little more than black splatter on the rocks. 

The beach falls silent. 

For a fleeting second, all that can be heard is Higgs’ own heavy breathing, rasping for air in his tattered lungs, and Lou’s faint sobs. A semi-solid blob of black tar oozes off a rock and  _ plops  _ into the sand. The steady drip of tar sloughing off the rocks joins the first few noises, and finally, Higgs regains some feeling in his legs, and as the tingling of muscles waking up begins, he falls forward, barely catching himself on his hands to avoid smashing his face into the ground. When he manages to struggle back to his feet and find his balance, there’s a definite shift in the air around him. This child, this  _ Lou,  _ is curled up in her crater, quivering like a leaf, like she hasn’t just displayed the most powerful use of DOOMs Higgs has seen since himself. Hell, there are jagged shards of black glass sticking out of the sand from where Lou’s fury apparently melted sand into weapons. Higgs is, he hates to say,  _ impressed.  _

His boots come to rest at the edge of Louise’s crater. She seems to sense his approach, carefully lifting her head from her hands and looking up at him. 

If he had to breathe, Higgs probably would have gasped. 

It was nothing new for tears made from tar to streak one’s face after a particularly taxing use of DOOMs or encounter with Beached Things. Higgs is certainly no stranger to it. Those black tears had become somewhat of a staple for him, as iconic to his men as the tattoos across his forehead or his grinning golden mask. The stronger the encounter, the darker and messier the tears got. Now, Higgs has had some nasty cases of black tears, where his eyes clouded with black spots and the tears were so thick he almost looked like a BT himself, but this...this is something new. 

Lou’s eyes are completely black when she pulls her hands away. 

Watery, brackish tar drips from her blackened hands, which are so coated Higgs can’t even see her skin colour beneath. Her face is ghoulish, washed out by viscous grey fluid while black as pitch slime oozes from her eyes, nose, and mouth, dribbles down her cheeks and chin. Her thin shoulders shake as she hiccups through her tears. She’s practically  _ exuding  _ tar at this point, from her pores and mouth and eyes. It could not feel pleasant in the slightest. 

“Please,” she begs, as more tar drips into her cupped hands. “Help me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, quarantine, huh? Hope y'all are inside, stayin safe, wearing a mask n physical distancing if u do go out. 
> 
> \- Sincerely, an immunocompromised chick who hasn't left the house since march
> 
> And as per tradition, here's the dissing of Higgs: higgs is a stinky rat boy who needs a shower
> 
> EDIT, OCTOBER 28th, 2020: I am in need of a beta tester/editor. If anyone is interested, please DM me on my Instagram - @novhella

**Author's Note:**

> oooOOOoOo what's gonna happen
> 
> Higgs is the most difficult character to write I stg this southern whore is gonna be the death of me
> 
> Also apologies for inconsistencies with canonical shit, I Do Not Understand some of the timeline stuff but bear with me lmao. It'll make sense I promise


End file.
